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Eternal Punishment: Ideology, Performance, and Martyrdom as Sunday's Expressions of the Death Drive

“Sleep sleep happy child. All creation slept and smil’d. Sleep sleep, happy sleep, While o’er thee thy mother weep” -William Blake, “A Cradle Song,” Songs of Innocence and of Experience “So, where is my dream?” “It is a continuation of reality.” “But where is my reality?” “It is at the end of your dream.” -The End of Evangelion (1997)

Considering the majority of his development occurred in Penacony’s third act, Sunday has proven himself as a compelling antagonist who rivals both Takuto Maruki (Persona 5 Royal) and Kevin Kaslana (Honkai Impact 3rd) in grandiosity and pessimism. Although his motivations and methods closely resemble theirs, the tragic path that led Sunday to his rigid belief system began when he was still a child and is intimately related to his experience with family. Having both witnessed the suffering of others and experienced it himself, Sunday’s ideology was born with a single purpose: to shelter humanity from the pain of reality. His answer to life appears rational on its surface and is constructed with kind intentions, but in practice it would have damned the cosmos to a purgatorial world of constancy and doomed its creator to infinite loneliness. It is this tension between Sunday’s intentions and the truth of his actions that fascinates me, because it reveals a deeper conflict within him that is also at the center of Penacony’s story. Here, I’ll use some of Freud’s psychoanalytic theories to illustrate what exactly that conflict is, and why it’s so important for a full understanding of both Penacony's finale and Sunday’s arc thus far.

Cohesion not guaranteed, my brain feels like swiss cheese after 2.2

Spoilers for the entire 2.2 Trailblaze Mission (In Our Time) and a small post-quest with Robin (The Feather He Dropped).

Disclaimer: All content in this post, especially the psychoanalysis, should be taken in the spirit of media analysis and nothing more. Also, corrections and additions are welcome, whether they are about interpreting Freud or HSR. :) 

To cut down on post length, external sources (that is, any reading that is not official Star Rail material) are given as numbered in-text citations and gathered in a pastebin document linked at the bottom with the full title and exact page numbers of the source.

And before we begin, a huge thank you to my boyfriend for proofreading this numerous times despite not having played any Hoyoverse games, and for talking out the philosophy with me T_T That’s love right there!

Penacony, Freud, and the Occasion for the Death Drive

“The IPC does not care about its workers! I bet you they would love it if those monsters came and killed me. That way they wouldn’t have to pay for my pension!” “Sounds like somebody could use a Sprinkles cupcake!” -It’s Always Night in Penacony Show

It is impossible to avoid Sigmund Freud when discussing the psychology of dreams, and his psychoanalytic theories are tightly woven into nearly every aspect of Penacony’s environment and story. Our most salient point of entry into his work is The Family’s sweet dream, which embodies the base instinct in human nature towards pleasure-seeking behavior and instant gratification, even at the expense of self-preservation, also known as the pleasure principle.¹ Be it slot machines, luxury cars, decadent food, or endless shopping malls, everything in the sweet dream exists to further each guest’s pursuit of pleasure—such is the purpose of dreams, Freud theorized, as vehicles for wish-fulfillment.² “Death,” let alone pain, is not allowed to exist in the sweet dream in order to preserve that pleasure:

“A further incentive to a disengagement of the ego from the general mass of sensations–that is, to the recognition of an ‘outside’, an external world–is provided by the frequent, manifold and unavoidable sensations of pain and unpleasure the removal of which is enjoined by the pleasure principle, in the exercise of its unrestricted domination. A tendency arises to separate from the ego everything that can become a source of such unpleasure, to throw it outside and to create a pure pleasure-ego which is confronted by a strange and threatening ‘outside’” (Freud, 1930, p. 4).³ “One of the twelve Dreamscapes in Penacony, and its time coincides with midnight. Here, the dream's time is forever stuck at 00:00. Tomorrow will not come, and this night of revelry will never end” (Loading Screen: Golden Hour).  Gallagher: …Think about this — what would it cost to create and maintain such a lavish dreamland? Gallagher: It's people's lives. The opulent dream is built upon the decay of spirits, with a toxic elixir called "pleasure" flowing through the Dreamscape. It tempts people to indulge in the Dreamscape, and gradually their minds succumb, becoming nourishment for the sweet dream. (The Public Enemy)

Aventurine: This dream [Memory Zone] of theirs isn’t a boundless sea, it’s a lonely island. The Family used the Harmony to build a high wall and isolate them from the vast and treacherous ocean of the outside world.

But “death” still lurks beneath the juvenile fantasy and its sweet commercial lies, in the yawning chasm proceeding spiritual death. This space, the Primordial Dreamscape, is a chaotic rendering of memories and emotions that goes beyond consumerism as the ultimate form of pleasure, and the high walls of the sweet dream separate each “Moment” from its depths. It is the original form of the sweet dream, its primitive reflection in the Memory Zone’s water, and the crystalline bodies of its memetic entities are like mirrors into the past inviting guests’ introspection. 

Introspection is the Achilles’ heel of The Family’s superficial paradise, because curiosity about oneself redirects the ego’s interest from external objects to the inner abyss of thoughts and desires deemed unacceptable in reality, and remembering their existence reveals psychic pain. The Family’s denial of these ‘impure’ thoughts reflects the process by which the ego represses instinctual impulses to avoid that pain:

Robin: While I was away from Penacony, the boundaries of the Twelve Dreamscapes kept expanding outward. But whenever I mentioned the anomalies in my dreams... all The Family heads refused to talk about it. Only my brother was willing to respond... Robin: Later, I discovered the secret letters from the IPC ambassador, which further convinced me that there are hidden secrets beneath the surface of Penacony. So, following the clues in the Oak Family's dossiers, I found my way here... Robin: ...The land of the exiles, concealed by The Family under the guise of "Death", a dream within a dream where Penacony's past is buried. (Small Town Grotesque) “Life is parceled in impenetrable barriers, obstructing the intrusion of the alien. But beneath that ironclad shell, there is a region both nameless and fragile” (Memory Zone Meme “Heartbreaker” Story). “We are very apt to think of the ego as powerless against the id; but when it is opposed to an instinctual process in the id it has only to give a 'signal of unpleasure’ in order to attain its object with the aid of that almost omnipotent institution, the pleasure principle” (Freud, 1926, p. 92).⁴

Freud begins Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) by pointing out the foundational assumption of psychoanalysis, namely that all psychic processes serve the pleasure principle in infantile life and the reality principle at a later point of ego development. The reality principle arises from the ego’s instinct for self-preservation, and it redirects pleasure-seeking behavior so that one is willing to wait for its payoff. Rather than relying on dangerous sources of pleasure that provide instant gratification, instead the constraints of reality (or “time”) imposed on the ego and any consequent pain (or “tension”) are endured for the sake of eventual pleasure.⁵ For psychoanalysts, this only further cemented pleasure’s importance in mental life. 

However, as World War I came to an end, Freud found these principles alone were insufficient to explain the purpose of trauma dreams in veterans returning from the battle front. Their dreams would faithfully recreate traumatic memories from the war each night, with no pleasurable payoff for the dreamer, and this directly contradicted Freud’s theory of dream interpretation.⁶ If trauma dreams did not fulfill the dreamer’s unconscious wishes, then they did not follow the pleasure principle; they seemed to serve some other purpose.

Though unconsciously repeating pain in waking life was not a new idea in psychoanalysis, trauma dreams highlighted a critical flaw in its understanding of this behavior’s ends. To untangle this complexity, Freud reexamined the aims of the “compulsion to repeat,” and speculated that it is not only an instinctual behavior, but also has an earlier origin than the pleasure principle. He then proposed a dualistic theory of desire that revealed something he believed was common to all organic life—that if there are life instincts, or what he called “Eros,” that are geared towards an organism’s pleasure and self-preservation, then there is also a primary death drive, or death instincts, that aims for its destruction:

Acheron: The Beautiful Dream is crumbling, but not because of a particular Aeon, a particular faction, or a particular visitor. Its collapse stems from a certain inevitability of human nature. The Family refuses to acknowledge this, and it has ultimately backfired and become a catalyst… Acheron: As people immerse themselves in the Dreamscape, where consequences and pain cease to exist, and only ease and pleasure prevail, they draw closer and closer to necrosis. Regardless of the perceived bliss, death looms as the inevitable conclusion. Acheron: Also, this necrosis will diffuse and spread. One piece of the puzzle’s mutation will eventually cause the entire building to shake, break…and crumble. Welt: …In the end, the dreams that people built in the name of freedom became the cage that imprisoned them. (When the Sacred Ginmill Closes)

The “inevitability” Acheron refers to is one and the same with the death instincts as illustrated through the Nirvana principle, originally proposed by psychoanalyst Barbara Low and adopted by Freud in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Early on in the work, he identifies G. Th. Fechner’s principle towards stability, or the constancy principle, as a greater implication of the pleasure principle’s terms. According to this principle, the psychic apparatus (or ‘psychic processes’) aims not only to relax psychic tension to avoid pain, but also to keep tension low and constant.⁷ But this raises a problem: the pleasure principle’s express purpose is to avoid pain, but pleasure is a finite state that can only be felt as such if there is pain to reduce in the first place. If this balance is interfered with, we do not preserve the initial euphoria of pleasure infinitely, but instead find it dulled with time until it approaches ‘zero’:

“When any situation that is desired by the pleasure principle is prolonged, it only produces a feeling of mild contentment. We are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment only from a contrast and very little from a state of things” (Freud, 1930, p. 16).⁸

This ‘zero’-state is the aim of the Nirvana principle, where it is not just the reduction of excitation but rather its total elimination that is ultimately desired.⁹ In other words, its aim is stillness through the suspension of psychic processes, a state of being that could only find its analogue in dormancy,¹⁰ or something unto death. Acheron’s point is that this necrotic, empty feeling is not an accident, because “death” lays the foundation for something new.

And this, at last, brings us back to Sunday. Incongruence, fantasy, and wishful thinking are just some of what drives Sunday to create his ideal world, a paradise where every day is a day of rest. Though his methods are misguided and extreme, he does this out of compassion for the weak and a sense that he must catch them in his paradise before they crash to their death. In truth, this “paradise” was death in a different form, where reality is inverted with one’s personal fiction and conflict is transcended by removing choice. The conflict between the life instincts and death instincts is key to understanding how Sunday arrived at this answer to life’s pain, but to understand the depth of that conflict we must go beyond his facade and grasp the true meaning of his infantile fantasy. By employing a Freudian psychoanalytic reading of Sunday’s arc, I hope to open new avenues of discussion about both his character and the meaning of Penacony.

The Prison of Fate

“Is darkness equal to daylight? Are sinners equal to the righteous? If you are born weak, which god should you turn to for solace?” -Sunday, Everything that Rises Must Converge “You know, in the thick of things, people are blind to the grit in their eyes...yet they can always feel its scratch. Want the answer? I'll give it to you. The whole thing is just fate playing a cruel joke on us.” -Gallagher, A Walk Among the Tombstones

We’ll begin with Sunday’s warped understanding of society and his ideology, as these represent the first layer of his fantasy. What’s striking about Sunday’s reading of human nature is his pessimistic outlook on human relationships and the potential for individuals to change. Sunday believes that life obeys a natural law called “survival of the fittest,” a perverse interpretation of Darwinian principles of evolution, that categorizes individuals as “strong” or “weak” based on inherent, unchangeable qualities within them. This law is the foundation of a chaotic world where the strong do not defend the weak, but trample them for their own gain:

Sunday: While the Harmony holds noble aspirations, the strong will always be strong, and the weak will always be weak, even in this carefree dream... Human nature contains greatness, but it also harbors inherent weaknesses that can't be eradicated. Sunday: In the end, if people can't even secure their own survival, they won't care about the illusory future of equality. As long as the law of survival of the fittest prevails... there will always be fledglings crashing to their death. (The Only Path to Tomorrow)

Sunday’s ideology takes a page from Arthur Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Idea, where he argues that the will to life is the reason individuals suffer, because, like the pleasure principle, “the basis of all willing is need, deficiency - in short, pain.”¹¹ Willing is a feature of individuality, which Schopenhauer further identifies as an illusion of nature—that is, individuality obscures how all life is an expression of one underlying Will, the common source of life.¹² In Sunday’s ideology, Schopenhauer’s “individuality” and “willing” are substituted by the term “self-value,” which forms the basis of the illusory prison of human consciousness. Self-value, then, is the root of human suffering, because satisfying the will to life requires taking “value” from others: 

Robin: That's just sophistry. If that were true, then only the powerful would have the right to determine the future. Sunday: Unfortunately, that's exactly what happens. Another name for "the future" is "self-value." [...] Sunday: Some are born weak and vulnerable, some find themselves trapped in unfortunate circumstances, some fall victim to malice and cowardice. When it comes to survival, everyone is equal, and the weak can only watch as their value [future] gets constantly diminished by external forces. (The Only Path to Tomorrow) Firefly: So, what is your definition of living a happy life? Sunday: Good question. Human consciousness is fundamentally an illusion, a cage known as "self-worth". People lured in by this illusion, make mistakes, yet still ask that external influences bear the burden. Sunday: When one mistake after the next permeates the masses, they become impossible to trace... Thus, the amassing of these individual cages culminate to form a prison, a place dictated only by the rule of "survival of the fittest." Sunday: Nature is always accompanied by predation and sacrifice... Its antithesis is known as Order. (Beauty and Destruction)

As long as the will to life must be satisfied, “survival of the fittest” will persist; in other words, the illusion of self-value ensures the law’s survival in the future. While this tells us part of why Sunday equates self-value with the future, his statement can also be interpreted through a psychoanalytic lens, particularly as it relates to transference and the repetition compulsion. Transference is the process by which people unconsciously cast the roles of past figures onto current relationships, repeating past trauma in the present. The individuals filling the roles may change, but the roles themselves remain constant through time. Through transference, a person’s unresolved past and unconscious beliefs adopted from those experiences construct an illusion that passes for objective reality:

"What psycho-analysis reveals in the transference phenomena of neurotics can also be observed in the lives of some normal people. The impression they give is of being pursued by a malignant fate or possessed by some 'daemonic' power; but psycho- analysis has always taken the view that their fate is for the most part arranged by themselves and determined by early infantile influences" (Freud, 1920,  p. 15).¹³

Transference is driven by an underlying compulsion to repeat the past known as the repetition compulsion. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud found that the repetition compulsion does not solely operate in service of the pleasure principle as it was previously understood, but also as an unconscious compulsion to repeat pain. Psychoanalyst and scholar Jonathan Lear provides an example of this in Freud (2015) when he describes the nature of unconscious mental processes:

“Suppose, to take a highly simplified case, a child has an unconscious fantasy, ‘I am the unloved one.’ Precisely because this fantasy is exempt from contradiction and is presented in a timeless mode, the person will tend to interpret life’s passing events through a frame of feeling unloved. The person will focus on real-life slights; but even kind gestures will tend to be treated with suspicion, as though there must be some underlying motive (‘He was nice to me only because he wants something from me’). The world will come to seem an unloving place, thus reinforcing the fantasy. The person can come to feel that she is somehow fated to be unloved.” (Lear, 2015, p. 6).¹⁴

To put Lear’s example in Sunday’s terms, an unconscious fantasy adopted from past experiences is the underlying material that constructs the illusory prison of self-value. The prison shapes our perception of reality, and this perception then reinforces the prison’s ‘form’ by affirming the unconscious fantasy. If one’s perception or the fantasy were to change, the dimensions of the prison would change with them, reshaping ‘reality.’

The prison of self-value therefore ensures the past’s survival in the present by facilitating its repetition; through repetition, the past becomes the prisoner’s future. In other words, by materializing the unconscious fantasy in reality through actions, the prison of self-value becomes one’s fate. We can then apply this framework to Sunday’s ideology: if fantasy and perception co-construct one another to create an individual human consciousness, it follows that Sunday’s ideology, as a reflection of his perception of the world, is rooted in an unconscious fantasy too, a belief that he has about himself.

Sunday: Well, don’t forget this…. not everyone really has a future.

So, just what is that belief? The past holds great significance to Sunday, and he vividly remembers the consequences of each decision he made. While in his inner world, he recounts three decisions that led him to lose faith in the Harmony and choose the Order for salvation. These decisions involved a Charmony Dove he and Robin found as children, a fraudulent stowaway, and Robin’s brush with death while she traveled beyond Penacony. He then asks which choice the Trailblazer would make given each scenario—the same choice as Sunday did, or some other choice? However, the choices are limited to either-or decisions between Sunday’s choice and its extreme opposite: either support Robin’s journey, or prevent her from taking it; either remain silent, or ask the Bloodhounds for mercy; either cage the Charmony Dove, or build a nest for it in a yard of predators, and no matter the choice, it always ends in tragedy.

Sunday: I know the suffering of being tormented, the turmoil of losing your way, how sorrow… and even despair, set in when matters don’t work out. All of this causes me unending pain, because this is not what “happiness” is at all.

This is because Sunday understands the world in terms of dichotomies, where things are either good or bad, righteous or sinful, strong or weak. It’s also why Sunday’s choice in each scenario is cast as the “good” choice, because it was made with kind intentions, while its opposite is the “bad” choice because it lacks compassion for the individual. The unfortunate outcome of either decision, both real and imagined, is therefore meant to persuade the player that Sunday’s perspective is ultimately correct, because “good” choices do not necessarily result in “good” outcomes in a disorderly world. Rather, choice itself is a chaotic variable that introduces uncertainty, splitting life into infinite paths and possibilities, or “untraceable mistakes.” In order to control outcomes, choice must be removed, even if such an outcome can only be achieved through fantasy.

To see the world in this way is to inhabit the monochrome world Acheron first referred to in Act I, a world where it’s all or nothing, and everything appears black or white. This manner of thinking constructs each decision as a false dilemma, which artificially limits the available options or perspectives to two extremes. For our purposes, this is among the most meaningful hints as to what Sunday’s unconscious fantasy is, because it is born out of his intense need for control, which is both a defense against the fantasy and the primary way that he repeats it.

Acheron: The golden dream is getting restless. In the coming long night, I'm afraid you will face many tribulations and witness many tragedies. And finally...your sight will only see black and white. Acheron: But please believe me that in that monochrome world, there will be a glimpse of fleeting red, and when you make a choice, it will reappear before you once more… (The Knocking at Ungodly Hours)

With this in mind, we can use Sunday’s black and white thinking to our advantage. Upon closer observation, a common theme is repeating itself in each decision Sunday did make, with each individual cast in the same role at different points in time. Despite his best intentions, Sunday’s actions alone can’t protect them from tragic outcomes—indeed, he is powerless against their fate. According to his ideology, there are inherently strong individuals and inherently weak individuals, and the strong have the power to defend the weak, but often choose not to; by this same logic, if Sunday can’t defend the weak despite his intentions to do so, then he must not be strong. He must be weak.

This brings us to the Charmony Dove’s fate, which is undoubtedly the most significant to his character out of the three scenarios, and acts as a symbol of the difference between Sunday’s and Robin’s beliefs regarding humanity. The bird is an object that they project these beliefs onto, shaped by their individual “cages,” and its fate reflects those beliefs back at them, reinforcing their diverging fantasies:

Sunday: This place is too dangerous for a fledgling. Let's take it with us — we can put it on the wooden shelf in front of your window. Robin: Okay! A bird like that must have a beautiful singing voice. But where will it live? Sunday: I'll ask the family head to build a cage for it. Robin: A cage... but then it won't have the freedom to fly, right? [...] Robin: Even if it's small and not fully feathered, and can't sing... it didn't come into this world just to be locked up in a cage. Robin: Birds... belong to the sky. (The Only Path to Tomorrow)

To Robin, the Charmony Dove is full of potential, and its fate can’t be determined by a single moment of its life, but Sunday regards it with caution and uncertainty; one wrong move, and the bird will take its last breath. This difference becomes the central disagreement in their debate over the sweet dream’s value, and Sunday reveals the bird’s tragic fate to Robin in order to drive home his point:

Sunday: Shortly after you left, it crashed to its death right in front of your window. Robin: ...I had surmised as much. I knew you wouldn't have avoided mentioning the bird for no reason. Robin: Despite that unfortunate outcome, I still believe it was the right decision. Birds aren't meant to spend their lives in cages... They belong in the sky, even if they can't fly. Sunday: But here's the thing. If there are birds in this world that can never fly, can we really assert that they belong in the sky?

Sunday’s meaning is clear: flightless birds are no different from those individuals who are born weak, and their fate is to watch their future disappear under the pressure of external influences. While Robin came to embody her beliefs by leaving Penacony behind, Sunday stayed and rose through the Oak Family’s ranks, never leaving the sweet dream’s cage. He embodies his beliefs by denying himself a future, because to choose otherwise would contradict his fantasy—that he is a flightless bird too, and therefore has no “value”:

[Sunday]: The victor bears the responsibility of victory. Finish me... and fly into the sky. [Robin]: We were supposed... to fly into the sky together. [Sunday]: ... [Sunday]: If only... I could… (The Feather He Dropped)

Sunday's unconscious fantasy—that he is an inherently weak person, a bird that will never fly—is a reflection of his self-value. By unconsciously repeating the pain of his past, his fantasy becomes the illusory prison known as one’s future, a self-fulfilling fate.

But all of this is only a small piece of the puzzle. It tells us what the unconscious fantasy is and how it affects him, but it doesn’t really tell us why he has it in the first place. Just as the belief was hidden in the shadows of Sunday’s ideology, its origin is hiding behind something even more conspicuous—a grand performance on the dreamscape’s finest stage.

An Infantile Drama

Trailblazer: Where is the Stellaron? Why am I not seeing it? Sunday: It hides behind the curtain. Or rather, it is the theater itself.  (Everything that Rises Must Converge)

Naturally, this leads us to the Embryo of Philosophy.

There is so much to talk about between the three phases of this entire fight, not to mention the mountains of references it makes to other media. However, I want to train our attention on the Embryo’s tears. Why is it crying, and why at this particular moment? The religious meaning of its tears is clear, but what is their psychoanalytic significance?

First, let’s consider their context. The Embryo’s golden tears stream down its face with each turn of “Im Anfang war das Wort” (“in the beginning was the word”), stretching its arms towards the sky with palms open in worship of Order. On the 8th turn, it reaches toward the sky to ask for Ena's blessing; Ena answers its call, reaching down to grant it power, nearly touching the Embryo’s outstretched pointer finger with THEIR own. In doing so, they create a mirror image of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam, a depiction of God giving Adam the spark of life.

This artistic and religious reference, alongside the Embryo’s fetal imagery and tears, leaves no doubt that the third phase in the fight is Sunday’s “moment of birth” as an Aeon, and this suggests that birth must inform the answer to our original question. So then, why does the Embryo’s “birth” bring it to tears? The answer lies in the meaning of Sunday’s performance in Penacony Grand Theater, of which the Embryo is just one part, and how it relates to his unconscious fantasy.

In a final effort to dissuade the Astral Express from resisting his plan, Sunday stages a dramatic retelling of the Order’s Genesis story and Penacony’s history that chronicles its changing masters through the eras. As an immersive stage play, its completion hinges on the crew’s participation, which involves slaying the master at each act’s conclusion in order to usher in the next one. Through his play, Sunday argues that humans crave a master who can provide them with meaning in the face of chaos, and because of this inherent weakness, progress is an illusion. The past, present, and eternal show of human history is one of endless repetition and self-delusion – though the individual master may change, humans remain puppets by their own design.

The Past, Present, and Eternal Show

This fraught relationship between humanity and its masters was a foundational point of Freud’s theory of the death instincts, which he grounded in his observations of infantile play. While he was staying with his daughter’s family, Freud noticed a peculiar game his grandson played with his toys that further called the pleasure principle’s dominance into question. The game began when his grandson threw the toys out of sight to make them “disappear,” after which he would retrieve them with his mother’s help to make them “return.” Freud deduced that this game (Fort/Da) was a reenactment of his mother “disappearing” when she left him at home, and speculated that it played a crucial role in his grandson’s good behavior during her absences.¹⁵ If the game was in service of the pleasure principle, Freud expected that the entire game would be played to completion, where the pain of the toys’ disappearance is endured for the eventual pleasure of their return. Instead, his grandson often only repeated the disappearance – the “drama’s” most painful part.¹⁶

In infantile play, several instincts intersect with a child’s memory in order to process psychological stimuli.¹⁷ Repetition facilitates their sense of mastery over unfamiliar stimuli, whether pleasurable or painful,¹⁸ and play offers a safe, fictional space for children to make sense of reality, where they can leave behind their role as spectators of life’s phenomena and become actors on its stage.¹⁹ By playing an active part in a memory’s repetition through play, indeed by controlling it, children move toward an even grander wish in their hearts: “the wish to be grown-up and to be able to do what grown-up people do.”²⁰ Freud suspected this was why his grandson played the game, because it offered him a sense of agency over his mother’s absences that reality could not.

The Golden Hour base model and its uncanny inhabitants, found in Dewlight Pavillion. One of the Oak Family Head’s toys.

However, Freud’s point was not that repetition in infantile play is pathological, but rather that when trauma is repeated in adult life—a time when experiences do not feel so new, and therefore do not bring as much pleasure or sense of mastery per repetition²¹—the mind is reverting to a previous state,²² namely to the way it functioned in childhood. In other words, the repetition compulsion is related to the instinct for mastery, and trauma repetition is the mind’s attempt to master a painful experience by replaying the past in the present, as it did through infantile play. In this way, life itself becomes the game, or a “play,” and fantasy merges with reality.

Now, let’s examine the conclusion of Sunday’s stage play, as humans take fate into their own hands on the Genesis story’s seventh day:

2:1 THEY bestowed upon all beings the gift of ‘meaning.’ All had been brought into existence. And then, THEY rested from all THEIR creative work. 2:2 However, once again, all the beings beseeched Ena, praising THEM, the magnificent Aeon with divine power, but with a tone of curse. 2:3 ‘With Order, you have defined all things in the Cosmos, yet this only made us realize that we are mere puppets within your grasp.’ 2:4 Thus, on that day, all beings united and cast the Aeon into the pit of destruction. 2:5 And so it was done. That marked the seventh day. (Lost Property readable)

Like a parent guiding their child, Ena imbued the universe with meaning through Order, weaving the answer to each of humanity’s questions into THEIR grand symphony. Humanity then recognized its passive role in relation to Ena, a higher being who is able to act on the universe’s grand stage, while mortals merely watch THEM. And just as Freud’s grandson casts away his toys in the first part of the drama, humanity then casts Ena into the abyss to make THEM “disappear,” rejecting their old master in a bid for control only to seek THEM out again in the eternal show. In their effort to become masters, humans seal their fate as puppets; or by another interpretation, this is the intended outcome all along, because out of the two desires at play here—the desire to replace the master themselves and the desire to submit to another—answering to a new master is far easier than becoming one:

[Tiernan]: Sin Thirsters... the obsessions of the Pathstriders. They emerge from the depths of IX, seeing themselves as masters of their own destiny, unknowingly repeating the actions of their past lives. [Tiernan]: They emerge from the Nihility and head toward it, leading purposeless lives… (And on the Eighth Day) Butler: "Either I shall be my own master, or I shall return to my former master! I shall not submit to a new master under any circumstances!" "I wish they could regain their reason [calm down] and cast away the shackles of hypocrisy," proclaimed the new master. (Tune Butler's emotion to Calm) Butler: "Without a master, who can grant me true freedom?" (Everything that Rises Must Converge)

By returning the planet to Order, its Pathstriders hope to reinstate the earlier phase of galactic history before Ena was absorbed by Xipe the Harmony. Understood through Freud’s observations of infantile play, this can be seen as a struggle between retaining the innocence of childhood, the previous state, and the “grand wish” to become an adult with agency; desires that are at once contradictory, and yet work in tandem with one another. But is this really all that Sunday’s performance is about?

For the moment, let’s return to trauma repetition and its conflict with the pleasure principle. To Freud, trauma is like a bodily wound, where unfamiliar stimuli “breach” the mind’s protective layer and overwhelm it; the repetition compulsion is a response to this breach, replaying past trauma in the present so that the mind learns to anticipate the disturbance in the future:

“The fulfilment of wishes is [...] brought about in a hallucinatory manner by dreams, and under the dominance of the pleasure principle this has become their function. But it is not in the service of that principle that the dreams of patients suffering from traumatic neuroses lead them back [...] to the situation in which the trauma occurred. [...] These dreams are endeavouring to master the stimulus retrospectively, by developing the anxiety whose omission was the cause of the traumatic neurosis” (Freud, 1920, p. 26).²³

This brings us to the final pillar of Freud’s death drive. If the repetition compulsion is an instinct, then it must not only be common to all organic life, but also must originate from a shared disturbance in evolutionary history. But a disturbance of this scale, he realized, could only be found in what shaped life’s beginning—the physical and chemical processes that cultivated life on Earth, rousing the first unicellular organism from its slumber in the primordial soup, and animating what was once dead. The repetition compulsion, then, was born from this original trauma of organic life, unanticipated by that ancient sea. And if that is the case, then the repetition compulsion’s true purpose is clear: it aims to return the living to its slumber, to the death state, and it dutifully follows life’s “circuitous paths” to bring about that end: 

“It would be in contradiction to the conservative nature of the instincts if the goal of life were a state of things which had never yet been attained. On the contrary, it must be an old state of things, an initial state from which the living entity has [...] departed and to which it is striving to return by the circuitous paths along which its development leads. If we are to take it as a truth [...] that everything living dies for internal reasons—becomes inorganic once again—then we shall be compelled to say that 'the aim of all life is death’ and, looking backwards, that 'inanimate things existed before living ones’” (Freud, 1920, p. 32).²⁴

The implications of this theory can be seen in Penacony’s oceanic imagery, which signifies both the unconscious memory of that primordial state and the salvation the sweet dream offers from reality. To enter the dream, The Reverie’s guests submerge themselves in a shallow pool and emerge on the “other side” reborn, baptized into the religion of pleasure and cleansed with the dream’s fiction. The primordial memory, then, is the lost childhood of organic life, a previous state it wants to return to — the unity before the violence of individuality.

Sunday: Some are born weak and vulnerable, some find themselves trapped in unfortunate circumstances, some fall victim to malice and cowardice. When it comes to survival, everyone is equal, and the weak can only watch as their value [future] gets constantly diminished by external forces. [emphasis added].

We also don’t need to stretch our imagination to connect all of this back to Sunday, who compares the weak to spectators of their own demise, just as Freud likens children to spectators of life’s phenomena, and perceives “external forces” as catalysts for change—for Sunday, they whittle away at one’s future, while for Freud they disturb a peaceful slumber.

How is all of this related to the Embryo’s tearful birth? The primordial soup was a cradle for organic life in its infancy, but it was also the “mother” that birthed it, and the death instincts compel life to return to its embrace. In Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety (1926), Freud identifies birth as the first “danger-situation” an individual experiences, because birth requires separation from their mother.²⁵ By coming into the world, newborns are inundated with unfamiliar stimuli, like the unexpected “breach” that characterizes trauma, and these sensations in turn produce the first instance of anxiety.²⁶ Though they can’t yet conceptualize this danger as the loss of their mother, for mental life at this stage doesn’t distinguish between the self and other objects, infants soon learn the uncertainty that accompanies danger can be relieved through their mother, who “satisfies all [their] needs without delay”; anxiety, then, is a response to situations where these needs go unsatisfied, and over which they alone have no control.²⁷

But birth is only the first separation between mother and child; the final separation, of course, is death. If the former’s danger is characterized by the mother’s absence (“object-loss”), then in death this danger becomes permanent. In Mourning and Melancholia (1917), Freud writes that mourning is a process of “[accepting that] the loved object no longer exists” and of withdrawing one’s interest (“libido”) from them.²⁸ Melancholia, its fraternal twin, shares several affective traits with this process, namely “a turning away from reality […] and a clinging to the object through the medium of a hallucinatory wishful psychosis”—that is, by living through fantasy.²⁹ Where melancholia distinguishes itself from mourning, however, is in one’s sense of responsibility for the object’s loss. In other words, the melancholic is tormented by a pervasive sense of guilt:

“In mourning it is the world which has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself. The patient represents his ego to us as worthless, incapable of any achievement and morally despicable; he reproaches himself, vilifies himself and expects to be cast out and punished […] He is not of the opinion that a change has taken place in him, but extends his self-criticism back over the past; he declares that he was never any better” (Freud, 1917, p. 246).³⁰

Sounds a little familiar, doesn’t it? Transference is another way of living life through fantasy, where each new actor plays the same role in its infinite drama, in this case the “lost object.” The Charmony Dove, the fraudulent stowaway, and Robin all unknowingly take on this role in Sunday’s unconscious, as objects he is trying to protect. However, this performance is always fated to end the same way: his actions fail to save them, and he blames himself and his weakness for their loss.

If performance is the throughline between reality and fiction, then Sunday’s “play” in Penacony Grand Theater—the birth of his paradise and near-ascension as an Aeon—is yet another continuation of this eternal show. Sunday’s greatest wish, his infantile wish, is to protect everyone, and Ena’s dream facilitates its fulfillment through fantasy. To realize the dream, Sunday must usurp the power of a master (an Aeon) for himself, and he does so by fusing the Harmony and Order together to create the Embryo of Philosophy, making Xipe and Ena its 'mothers.' But the Embryo’s birth also requires the “death” of its creators, precisely because their power had to be stolen to create the eternal dream’s foundation. In other words, the Embryo must replace its parents so that it may truly become a master like them. Sunday's full performance encompasses both separations between “mother” and child at once: the separation through birth, and the separation through death.

In their Christian interpretation, the Embryo’s tears signify Christ’s empathy for human suffering, but in the psychoanalytic interpretation they suggest the Embryo’s anxiety about its performance. And this anxiety is well-founded, for all of the reasons we’ve discussed: the primordial danger of being born into the world, of emerging from “death” and becoming separate from it, and the threat of permanent object-loss if the Embryo completes the performance as planned. But we should also remember that this anxiety is in reality nothing new for Sunday, because he has already experienced all of these losses first-hand in the past. In other words, the Embryo cries because its performance reminds Sunday of something he’s experienced before, the very memory that he is trying to control—indeed master—through repetition. This memory, and the anxiety, concerns his wish’s original failure to materialize, the trauma of which laid the foundation for each subsequent “performance.” Plainly, it’s about the death of his mother, and his failure to protect her from the Stellaron disaster.

Given how he belabored the importance of his three decisions in his inner world, this may seem like a bit of a stretch. In fact, he doesn’t directly say a word about his mother at all — but that is exactly why I am so suspicious. Instead of acknowledging her with words, her death lingers in his desperate need to control outcomes, his preoccupation with weakness, and his yearning for guidance from a master, something he lost as a child when he needed it most. Perhaps this is part of what motivates him to become that master for everyone else, to replace the parent he lost by “becoming” them. 

It’s also not lost on me that Sunday cries during the Stellaron disaster, further suggesting a narrative parallel between the Embryo crying and his past. In that moment, his tears highlight the incongruence between the image Sunday puts forth of himself as Robin’s protector, and the reality that he alone was never able to protect anyone. His mother died, Robin got shot, and suffering followed his decisions despite his kind intentions. From an early age, he had already given up on the possibility of sharing a stage with his sister, and eventually resigned himself to a grim fate as the universe’s lone star. While Gopher Wood’s role in reinforcing his unconscious belief should not be understated, I hesitate to say his poison is truly the belief’s origin.

“The echoes of the memories someone once held of their beloved family. Across the long night, they will accompany him in the past, present, and future.” (Echoes of Faded Dreams story)

What’s more, Sunday tells us that his end goal is not to resurrect Ena, but rather to construct his paradise on Ena’s remains, creating a world without Aeons at all. This infantile fantasy, a world without the “adult” influence of these higher beings, is a metaphor for his search for happiness after the meaningless Stellaron disaster that took his mother away from him, and to recover the innocence he lost with her passing. He seeks to create paradise from destruction, to build a new world on her remains, and become a master of it himself. Both his stage play and his role as the conductor of the paradise’s symphony only further cement this: through his performance, he asserts that he is no longer a passive observer of the disaster, no longer a spectator of his own demise or merely Gopher Wood’s puppet, but an actor and an artist in his own right. By utilizing the Stellaron to create paradise, he hopes to master his weakness.

This symbolism goes crazy. What do you mean the Stellaron is a theater, it shines like the moon, it’s the reason Sunday’s mother died*, and it’s the site where he initiates Third Impact?

And I know, I know all of the Evangelion fans are saying “we fucking knew this already,” and you’re right! Hideaki Anno was also inspired by Freud, among many other psychoanalysts and philosophy giants, and Hoyoverse has never been shy about how much Anno’s work influences their own. It is undeniable that Shinji and Sunday share a character arc as it relates to the loss of their mother, and Sunday is far from the first and certainly not the last Hoyoverse character who will either, but where they differ is in the details of their death wish. In The End of Evangelion (1997), Shinji wishes for a world where he can’t be rejected by others, because there would be no meaningful difference between him and another person if they’re all just LCL soup, while Sunday wishes for a world where the weak never have to face their weakness, and weakness is no longer a “sin”; the outcome of both of these wishes, then, is a world where sin can never be repeated. But this tragedy’s ending was told from the beginning — trying to sever the cycle is the same as repeating it, and shedding one master means gaining another. Rather than preserving life and protecting it from pain and disappointment as he intended, Sunday’s dream world only guarantees its own end.

This is why the Embryo cries. Sunday’s performance is a reenactment of both the first and last severance between his mother and himself—his birth and her death—and the origin of the pain that would eventually justify the eternal dream’s creation. 

*I say this with the huge caveat that Penacony lore, Halovian lore, and Sunday + Robin lore, are a bit (okay, very) confusing. It is possible their homeland was destroyed by a different Stellaron. Also, who am I to assume Halovian birth even remotely resembles human birth? I don’t know. Talk about how vague Halovian lore is right now in the version satisfaction survey and maybe we’ll get real answers.

Infinite Sin and the Will to Punishment

Unfortunately, it isn’t quite that simple. Freud did not believe that this pessimistic interpretation of the death instincts was the full story of the death drive, and this analysis, though fruitful, is full of apparent contradictions as a result of treating it that way. Though it’s not incorrect to assess Sunday’s actions from a self-destructive angle, this alone is an inadequate framework for illuminating the full extent of his hypocrisy. We see glimmers of it in Sunday’s inner world, when he admits the price of attaining his dream—“merely a personal and eternal sacrifice”—and in Penacony Grand Theater, when Himeko points out the fallacy that this could ever truly be a dignified existence for the many living under Sunday’s will. The tension between his willingness for self-sacrifice and desire for total domination is a core conflict of Sunday’s character arc in Penacony. These two aims constantly struggle to overcome one another, and within that struggle lies a truth about the nature of life and the meaning of Penacony’s story.

The seductive promise of Sunday’s paradise belies its reality, which requires the paradise’s conductor to remain awake until the end of time. Sunday minimizes the personal cost of Ena’s dream by portraying himself as a martyr for a noble cause, because to him this solitude truly is a meager price to pay for everyone’s eternal “happiness.” However, Robin is the first to point out that his role in sustaining the dream looks less like a heroic sacrifice than it does eternal punishment:

Robin: It's true that some people are born strong, and others are born weak. If the Trailblaze is the target of heroes, then the Harmony will guarantee that the strong help the weak. Only the people of Penacony themselves can be the saviors of their homeland. Robin: Their path of happiness should be forged by themselves. While I may not be a Nameless, I'm willing to instill courage in all those who need it. Robin: This includes my brother as well. Ena's Dream... is too cruel for him, and everyone else. […] Robin: Brother, you have heard their cries... This is not the paradise they hoped for. "Harmonious Choir" The Great Septimus: Even so, they don't know where they should be heading. That's why... I had to become the lone star in the sky to guide them. Robin: Even if that star... must hang in a perpetual night of solitude? (And On the Eighth Day)

And one does have to wonder: why would Sunday, who has clearly demonstrated his own desire to turn away from the pain of reality, deliver a fantasy world that promises just that to everyone but himself? To begin to unpack this, let’s return to the idea of guilt, which we briefly touched on in the discussion of melancholia. 

Before developing his death drive theory, Freud attributed a wish for punishment to dreams and behaviors which, on their surface, contradicted the pleasure principle’s tendency to avoid pain.³¹ These dreams, he argued, represented a masochistic tendency in human nature, where “[pain] for one system [is pleasure] for the other.”³² But Freud’s understanding of masochism changed with Beyond the Pleasure Principle, which raised the possibility that masochism was originally a death instinct that was altered by the life instincts to serve the pleasure principle.³³ He was then able to take up masochism with a newly instructive angle in The Ego and the Id (1923), where he formally introduced not only the term “id” for the realm of the instincts, but also the “super-ego,” an omnipresent and judgmental conscience that defines the ego ideal.³⁴

The super-ego is a representation of the ego’s parents and their teachings, reborn from the ruins of the Oedipus complex and its unfulfilled wishes. The Oedipus complex is named for the ill-fated protagonist of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, who unknowingly murders his father and marries his mother, thereby fulfilling a prophecy he sought to avoid. After he is made aware of his moral failings, he blinds himself in shame and goes into exile from his former kingdom. In The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), Freud describes the Oedipus complex as an early stage of child psychosexual development where the child’s parent of the opposite sex is cast as their first sexual object.³⁵ But this nascent sexual attachment creates a dilemma for the child, because in order to fulfill the Oedipal wish (attaining a “union” with the loved-object), they have to triumph over their rival, the parent of the same-sex. The child then develops an “ambivalent” attachment to their same-sex parent, where the familial love they have for them is complicated by their desire for the other parent.³⁶ However, the child soon realizes that its options to fulfill the Oedipal wish are untenable with reality, and the price of achieving it is severe punishment at the "rival's" hands.³⁷ It then abandons the Oedipal wish by repressing it, instead developing a strong “identification” with the same-sex parent—that is, instead of trying to kill the father to be with the mother, it tries to become like him.³⁸ This identification establishes the ego’s moral framework. 

On the left, Sunday crying in his ultimate animation. On the right, a photograph by Albert Greiner of actor Louis Bouwmeester as Oedipus after blinding himself in Oedipus Rex. This shit, as they say, writes itself.

Penacony’s environmental design references the super-ego through its persistent eye motif, which represents surveillance in the sweet dream and introspection in the primal dreamscape. In addition to its psychoanalytic roots, the eye motif in Sunday’s character design both furthers his angelic iconography and visually connects him to Ena, whose eye represents THEIR sovereignty over mortals through the law.

Surveillance is central to any system of government that prioritizes control like the Order does, and the resulting paranoia of such a system encourages rigid adherence to its rules. Likewise, the super-ego watches the ego’s thoughts and actions for signs of transgression and punishes it for every immoral impulse, whether acted on or merely imagined. The threat of punishment is what motivates the ego to enforce the super-ego’s imperatives, repressing impulses that fall outside the sphere of moral acceptability and casting all that is not orderly outside of what comprises it. In Penacony, the analog for the super-ego is most closely found in the Gopher Wood, the Dreammaster, who oversaw the sweet dream’s descent into hedonism in order to strengthen his influence and nurture the Stellaron. This is also why he is often embodied as a raven who spies on Penacony’s scenes, acting as Sunday’s “eyes” to maintain control of all the actors.

“Something Unto Death”

It should come as no surprise, then, that the super-ego also plays a crucial role in the eternal show. The super-ego is built on the teachings and morals of the past as embodied by the individual’s parents, and these values guide the ego in the present so that the ideal may be attained in the future; in other words, the super-ego ensures the past’s survival through its repetition in the present so that it becomes one’s future.³⁹ Of course, the super-ego is not literally the ego’s father, but rather a representation of him recreated within the mind.⁴⁰ Perhaps this is why Gopher Wood is able to “speak” through each Oak Family member in the present, despite his body’s immolation in the past — his rules survive in their minds as the supreme source of moral guidance. That, and dream logic.

As both a political and religious fundamentalist leader in the dreamscape, Gopher Wood radiates the “Father” archetype, marking him as an authority not only of Penacony’s civic prosperity, but of righteousness itself. Because of this, he is a surrogate for divinity—for Xipe the Harmony in public, and for Ena the Order in private—capable of judging the ego in "God’s" place. While this relationship to some extent applies to all Oak Family members, it is especially true for Sunday and Robin, for whom Gopher Wood literally plays the role of their adoptive father. For Sunday, as Gopher Wood’s successor in the Oak Family and tool of the Order, this takes on an even greater significance. Their relationship constitutes a faithful representation of the ego and the super-ego, where Sunday is taught by Gopher Wood to uphold the Order’s ideals to be a morally righteous person, and to repress all of his ‘imperfection’:

“As a substitute for a longing for the father, [the super-ego] contains the germ from which all religions have evolved. The self-judgment which declares that the ego falls short of its ideal produces the religious sense of humility to which the believer appeals in his longing” (Freud, 1923, p. 33).⁴¹ “It's said that the master of this pavilion suffers from severe compulsions, but this table clearly shows that he has been cured.” “Unlike a long table, round tables have no sense of priority or opposition, it is very likely that they are an Aeonic candidate for the Path of Harmony”  (Conference Round Table investigations in Dewlight Pavillion) [emphasis added].

Killing the “Father”....to be with the “Mother”?

But the super-ego’s standards aren’t truly meant to be achievable for the ego, because the ego’s identification with the parents is defined by its difference from them; to disrupt that identification would be to confuse the ego’s sense of self.⁴² This is yet another manifestation of the ego’s conflict between remaining subservient to its “master,” the super-ego, or overthrowing it to become the new master:

“[The super-ego’s] relation to the ego is not exhausted by the precept: ‘You ought to be like this (like your father).’ It also comprises the prohibition: ‘You may not be like this (like your father)–that is, you may not do all that he does; some things are his prerogative’” (Freud, 1923, p. 30).⁴³

Thus, the ego creates an impossible task for itself. It wants to be seen as a morally righteous subject, and it tries to achieve this by modeling its every thought and action after the “Father.” However, the ego can never truly censor all 'impure' impulses, and for this reason it will always be deserving of punishment; this is the source of the ego’s persistent sense of guilt.⁴⁴ The tension between the super-ego and the ego is what Freud referred to as “moral masochism,”⁴⁵ wherein the ego not only fears the super-ego’s punishment, but also unconsciously desires it. Moral masochists do not care who punishes them and do not limit their suffering to sexual fantasies—instead, “the suffering itself is what matters.”⁴⁶

This desire is the result of several transformations that occur in the death instincts. Earlier, I mentioned that we were working with an incomplete understanding of the death drive—that the purpose of life is to return to death. But life is almost never this frictionless, and neither is instinctual life. In reality, the death instincts all trend toward self-annihilation and restoring the state before life, but the life instincts persist alongside them to preserve life. Taken alone, they are only capable of inertia; together, as each struggles against the aims of the other, life can evolve and progress into new territory, ‘blazing a trail’ towards new beginnings  — “life itself [is] a conflict and compromise between these two trends.”⁴⁷ To make "life" possible, the death instincts are fused with the life instincts, making it difficult if not impossible to observe any one behavior that purely exhibits the death instincts.⁴⁸ 

One product of these fusions is the sadistic instinct. In The Economic Problem of Masochism (1924), Freud affirms what he had only surmised in Beyond the Pleasure Principle—that sadism is an inversion of a primary masochism, where what was once a death instinct bent on self-annihilation is now a “destructive instinct” fused with Eros that seeks to 'master' others:

“The libido has the task of making the destroying instinct innocuous, and it fulfills the task by diverting that instinct to a great extent outwards [...] towards other objects in the external world. The instinct is then called the destructive instinct, the instinct for mastery, or the will to power” (Freud, 1924a, p. 163).⁴⁹

But a portion of that aggression is retained in the ego, attached to the super-ego (the 'master'), and redirected towards the ego; hence, moral masochism.⁵⁰ In other words, the desire to punish others is reconfigured through the super-ego as a desire to punish oneself.

So what does “punishment” mean here? Freud concludes The Ego and the Id by arguing the fear of punishment is really a fear of losing love and protection from the parents, “Destiny,” or the super-ego. If their love is only garnered through moral behavior, then immorality risks its withdrawal. Without love, the ego is vulnerable to the world and its dangers, and to the possibility of its death—thus, the fear of punishment is really the ego’s fear of death, and consequently, its desire for death:

“The fear of death in melancholia only admits of one explanation: that the ego gives itself up because it feels itself hated and persecuted by the super-ego, instead of loved. To the ego, therefore, living means the same as being loved [...] But when the ego finds itself in an excessive real danger which it believes itself unable to overcome by its own strength [...] it sees itself deserted by all protecting forces and lets itself die” (Freud, 1923, p. 61).⁵¹

Now, let’s consider the origin of Sunday’s melancholy, his failure to protect his mother. This ‘sin’ is at the center of his performance, and it is the pain he keeps repeating over and over again. He repeats this pain because he feels guilty for being too weak to protect his loved one, and that guilt finds its source in his severe and unforgiving super-ego. Sunday suffers immensely from the responsibility he feels for everyone’s happiness, let alone his loved ones’ safety; it is strongly implied that he has obsessive-compulsive disorder, a condition that likely wasn’t helped by the Order’s strict rules. But Sunday fundamentally suffers for the same reason that everyone else suffers — because ‘sin’ is infinite for imperfect beings, and no amount of repression can change that. The guilt he feels for this is also infinite. One of the reasons that Sunday volunteers himself as the Order’s sacrificial lamb is because he believes the suffering of others to be of higher importance than his own, certainly, but it is also because of the self-punishment he is promised through the plan’s outcome. In other words, his infinite solitude is a form of justice for his original sin and is, by design, a death sentence.

This leaves us with our final contradiction to untangle. The deceit of Sunday’s dream world is its benevolent veneer, which obscures the violence of its compulsive unity at the expense of individuality. Before his performance in Penacony Grand Theater, Himeko acknowledges Sunday has “a strong conviction and a desire for dominance” that cannot be satisfied through debate alone; he derives far more pleasure from demonstrating his superiority through example. We witnessed that aspect of his personality firsthand when Sunday subjected Aventurine to a trial from the Harmony and branded him with its death sentence, an outcome he took utmost care beforehand to ensure was predetermined. However, when Himeko calls Sunday on the hypocrisy of his martyrdom, he dismisses it and shuts down any further debate:

Sunday: True goodness can only be achieved through faith. Himeko: Allow me to point out that falling into a permanent slumber is not happiness, especially when those people are driven by someone else's will in their sleep. […] Sunday: My sole objective is to create a paradise free from Aeons, where the Order ensures the dignity and happiness of all humanity. A paradise exclusive to us human beings. Himeko: That's not the case. If people are to live with dignity, there must be nothing and no one above them. Himeko: In your so-called paradise, you would be the one reigning supreme. Sunday: Looks like we won't be able to convince each other. Now that our conflict has been destined, let's unveil our Paths and reveal to the universe the true path. (Everything that Rises Must Converge)

You know he enjoyed every second of this. (From Aventurine’s “A Moment Among the Stars - Inherently Unjust Destiny” trailer).

Circumstances aside, good intentions or not, Sunday is not without his own stubborn will that he imposes on others. Acknowledging this neither throws everything we’ve discussed beforehand out the window, nor does it suggest that Sunday’s martyrdom isn’t genuine. It does ask whether emphasizing Sunday’s martyrdom at the expense of his capacity for sadism is possible without disregarding his agency. In other words, Sunday did not create a dream world that excludes himself by design solely to punish himself and move closer to death; the control it offers him over others, though illusory, is just as appealing. Playing “God” in this way is an extreme and, in a sense, ‘aggressive’ expression of his own will to life, an equally fervent wish to surpass his “master,” protect the weak, and forge a new beginning.

In Sunday’s manifestation of Dominicus, we see both the sadistic instinct and the masochistic instinct represented as two sides of the same being. On one side is the confident and domineering Septimus, who, as the maestro of the eternal dream, embodies the sadistic instinct for mastery over others; on the other side is the Embryo of Philosophy, representing the masochistic instinct to return to the mother. 

We’ve already discussed the Embryo of Philosophy at length, but Septimus also merits closer attention. In contrast to the Embryo’s fragile, withdrawn posture and emotional vulnerability, Septimus is towering, ostentatious, and grandiose; it makes wide, sweeping gestures that cover the entire stage, carrying itself with an authority that commands the audience’s attention. Indeed, Sunday puts on a voice as Septimus**, lowering his pitch and raising its volume so that it booms with the power he so desperately craves. Even its title, “The Great Septimus,” reads more like a character in a child’s fantasy than a threatening embodiment of Order with the means to suppress autonomy. In other words, Sunday treats Septimus as a persona, an image he wants to project into the world, or a “fictional” version of himself; plainly, it is a manifestation of his ego ideal.

The destruction of this nascent Aeon’s body therefore holds great significance as we move into the conclusion of Sunday’s character arc, at least for his role in Penacony. Dreams exist in the liminal space between reality and imagination, much like the “self” straddles the ideal and the real. Destruction and creation are rules of the universe that can’t be transcended, and the “self” is always in flux; but because of this chaos, there is always a chance to change one’s fate. Septimus represented Sunday’s infantile wish to protect everyone, no matter the cost, and the Embryo of Philosophy signified his desire to remain the same forever, as he was in childhood. Without their armor to protect him from reality, he once again faces the primal fear of life and the inevitability of one’s death. But rather than letting himself die in an ocean of guilt, there’s a chance to write a new ending to his ill-fated play. 

**It’s apparent that the boss’s voice has certain effects on it that contribute to this, but I noticed something a little more than that while listening back to some cutscenes that I believe were acting choices on the VA’s part. Also, this judgment is based on the English dub.

TL;DR: someone get this man some serotonin immediately.

That’s it! I really wanted to include an analysis of Sunday’s new outfit here that ties it to Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and back to The World as Will and Idea, but I ran out of time. :( It will have to wait for another post. Thank you so much for reading <3

References:

Numbered external citations with page numbers can be found here:

https://pastebin.com/2jXQGTHk

List of Freudian Texts Referenced:

Mourning and Melancholia (1917) Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) The Ego and the Id (1923). Page numbers are given from my hard copy. The Economic Problem of Masochism (1924) The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex (1924) Civilization and Its Discontents (1925). Page numbers are given from my hard copy. Inhibitions, Symptoms. Anxiety (1926)

Other Texts Referenced:

The World as Will and Idea by Arthur Schopenhauer. Page numbers are given from my hard copy. Freud (2015) by Jonathan Lear, 2nd edition. Page numbers are given from my hard copy.

Further Reading/Watching:

I highly recommend this article series by solenestuaries of Hyperion Team 3rd on substack. The first is Honkai Impact 3rd focused, the second is a mix of Honkai 3rd Part 2 and Honkai: Star Rail 2.0 focused:

Part 1: What do we talk about when we talk about dreams?

Part 2: “Why does life slumber?”: Dreams, Entropy, and the Many-Worlds of Quantum Mechanics

I am greatly indebted to her analysis for convincing me to go beyond Freud’s A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis. Her grasp of psychoanalysis and schizoanalysis is staggering and thought-provoking. Do yourself a favor and read all of her articles!

Destruction as a Cause for Coming Into Being by Sabina Spielrien. The inspiration for Beyond the Pleasure Principle. 

Origins and Mysticism of the Death Drive in Psychoanalysis & the Philosophy of Transgression by ESTOERICA. I was wayyy too deep into writing this post by the time I discovered this video, but please for the love of god just watch it and prepare to have your mind blown.

[trashcanlore]

A Crack Theory About Maze

Alternatively: Everyone in Natlan is dead and I can prove it with 3 easy tools I already have in my brain

*Record scratch* I bet you're wondering how we got here. Well, it all started when I was playing through Simulanka and saw the carpet on the floor of Constellation Metropole. The pattern reminded me of player piano scrolls, and since my brain needs to be studied in a lab, that then reminded me of Westworld. (Slight spoilers for season 1 follow)

Westworld is a sci-fi-ish TV show about a futuristic amusement park recreating the Wild West, featuring interactive storylines where guests can act out their hearts' darkest desires. The only ‘people’ hurt are the hosts, who are basically the android NPCs of the park. Hosts are part of greater park narratives, and individually operate within their story loops, unless disturbed by the outside forces of guests. At the end of each day, the hosts are reset/memory wiped/repaired (unless the narrative says differently) and return to experience the horrors anew. The player piano is used as a visual and narrative motif throughout Westworld to represent the cyclical and automated lives of the hosts; similarly, the clockwork in Constellation Metropole represents the strictly laid out paths of the toys while under the ‘protection’ of the Goddess of Prophecy. 

Convinced this carpet pattern was an intentional reference, and knowing that summer events foreshadow the new region, I flung myself headfirst into themes and narratives delulu (a season 1 rewatch) and during that rewatch I realized that a different Westworld plot point and visual motif might be what's actually foreshadowing for my mostly vibes-based theory: Everyone in Natlan is dead.

THE MAZE

The imagery of a humanoid figure in a maze is used throughout Westworld, explained within the narrative of the park as a Native American myth. According to the in-park mythology, the maze represents “the sum of a man’s life,” and the man in the center has been killed and resurrected many times, eventually building the maze around himself as protection. (Resurrection is a very common theme in Indigenous American mythology.) There is a human character who is trying to solve the maze, and for a time he believes the center of the maze is true death, something that does not exist in the park because the guests cannot be killed (by the hosts) and the hosts can always be repaired.

This myth is based on the real life creation myth of the Tohono O'odham people, where the Man in the Maze, I’itoi, created the world in an intense struggle and then retired to a labyrinthian cave on top of a mountain. In art, I’itoi is depicted above a maze, which represents the experiences and choices of a person throughout their lives. The middle of the maze represents their goals and dreams, and once they reach the center, they can look back and then pass into the next world.

According to some tellings of the myth, I’itoi was killed by the humans he created and taught. He then resurrected himself, invented the concept of war, and then brought the Tohono O’odham people to the surface of the earth to be his soldiers. 

Fun fact: This creation story is actually referenced in ZZZ, with the Papago hollow (Papago is an alternate name for the Tohono O’odham people).

In Westworld, the maze is actually a thought exercise and model developed by the programmer behind the park hosts. His theory of consciousness was that it was achieved through a journey inward, and when a host reached the center of the maze, they would achieve true consciousness and be ‘free.’ 

Maze iconography in the Americas is not unique to the Tohono O'odham people - another notable example is the Hopi Tapuat. This labyrinth (technically only has one path) represents the human life cycle and eventual (spiritual) rebirth.

While researching maze symbolism, I read a few articles that mentioned Mesoamerican mazes being used to trap the spirits of the dead, but unfortunately, I couldn't find any specific source for that information. However, it is possible to connect maze imagery to the Aztec and Mayan beliefs about the Underworld. Multiple archaeological excavations have uncovered huge networks of caves, tunnels, and rooms underground that may have been built to represent the journey to the underworld and/or provide a location for rituals associated with death. (You can read more about this here: 1 2 3)

As for the underworld itself, both the Aztec Mictlan and the Maya Xibalba are described as containing all kinds of traps and challenges for the dead passing through - and can’t forget the ballcourt (in Xibalba at least). Ball is life. While this isn’t exactly a maze, I will argue that for the sake of this crack theory, it’s close enough thematically. 

Smoke and Mirrors

You may have recognized the name Mictlan, because in Genshin, that’s one of the names for the Masters of the Night-Wind tribe, which can be alternatively translated as “Masters of the Mysterious Smoke.” This will be relevant later, I promise. 

The Natlan craftable sword, the Flute of Ezpitzal, is described as being a ritual instrument of this tribe, and the description tells the story of how humans and dragons came to a (local?) agreement to ensure their survival. The dragons had fled into dreams because of the fire of “ancient beacons,” and when the humans asked for their protection, they offered the following: 

"A labyrinth of mirrors and a fortress of mist, these shall we build to shield your tiny mortal tribes from the scourge of war." 

The theme continues with the name of the sword’s passive: “smoke-and-mirror mystery,” and the upcoming Archon Quest “Beyond the Smoke and Mirrors.” The phrase “smoke and mirrors” is an idiom for distracting from something unpleasant, but in the context of Natlan lore, it’s almost certainly referring to the smoking obsidian mirror iconography. 

Mirrors of all kinds were used throughout ancient Mesoamerica for divination and scrying-like rituals, including communication with otherworld entities. The most well known mirror material used was obsidian, which was also used for blades and tools - the black color of obsidian is probably what led to its association with smoke (also you can use mirrors to start fires). Obsidian mirrors were associated with additional imagery such as fire, the sun, eyes, butterflies, and caves as the entrance to the underworld. Mirrors were also compared to the surface of still water (a straightforward comparison) - one interesting example is Aztec writing that referred to Aztlan (mythical origin of Aztec people) as ‘the great water mirror that surrounds the great city.’ There was even a period of time where the mirror was used as a metaphor to represent the world itself. 

This is similar to what Mona says about Simulanka: fate in Simulanka is directly based on Teyvat’s, and that “the creator made this world inside a mirror, or a lake, and this world is the reflection.” 

Here’s where things start to get interesting: there is a Nahuatl glyph for the smoking obsidian mirror, specifically associated with a god who we’ll discuss later. The scroll-like shape used for the smoke is very similar to the symbol used for speech, singing, or breath.

This shape is also very similar to the older Mayan glyph for smoke - which happens to be basically identical to the symbol used for blood. You can see an example here in this famous carving from Yaxchilan:

The link between smoke and blood is actually explicitly referenced in the name of the Flute of Ezpitzal. Ezpitzal is a Nahuatl word meaning ‘gust of blood’ - eztli is blood and pitza is ‘to blow,’ as in playing a flute. Pitza is also sometimes translated “becoming inflamed with anger.” The ezpitzal symbol is made up of six streams of blood, ending in a precious stone, with a heart in the center:

The ezpitzal can be found flowing from the head of older depictions of Tezcatlipoca “smoking mirror,” the Lord of the Night. 

The Lord of the Night

Tezcatlipoca is one of the central Aztec gods, associated with the night sky, hurricanes, and conflict, and the calendar. He was typically depicted with a missing foot due to a monster attack and a smoking obsidian mirror somewhere on his body. The missing right foot is usually replaced with a smoking obsidian mirror, a snake, or a bone. Tezcatlipoca has similarities to the earlier Maya deities Tohil (god of fire and associated with sacrifice) and K’awiil (thunder god), who is depicted with a smoking obsidian knife in his forehead and one leg replaced with a snake. 

The smoking mirror glyph associated with Tezcatlipoca looks a little bit like the obsidian carvings in the Night Kingdom:

Besides for the title of Lord of the Night, Tezcatlipoca is Genshin lore relevant as the rival of Quetzalcoatl. In one version of the Five Suns Aztec creation myth, Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl are creation gods and take turns being suns and destroying each other’s work. Quetzalcoatl hasn’t been mentioned by name in Natlan yet, but his Maya equivalent, Kukulkan (“Plumed Serpent”), also known as Waxaklahun Ubah Kan (“War Serpent”) sure has. In Genshin, Waxaklahun Ubah Kan, or the Sage of the Stolen Flame, stole a seed of phlogiston from the dragons and taught the humans how to use it. He is shown alongside Xbalanque, the first Pyro Archon, on a mural, where they both appear to hold phlogiston. There’s something important missing here: How did the Genshin equivalent of Tezcatlipoca contribute to the ‘creation’ of humans?

In the 5.1 trailer, the Lord of the Night and the “protection of the rules” are mentioned. The only information we have about the Lord of the Night is that in the misleading Records of Hanan Pacha, he leads humans astray and is the enemy of Waxaklahun Ubah Kan, and that a cat in the Night Kingdom warns us against trusting the Sage.

The set of rules we know the most about are the ones created by Xbalanque, using borrowed power from the heavens (Ronova). These are the rules that allow humans to become Archons and inherit the memories of the land. 

The other, more mysterious set of rules, are those that allow Ancient Name bearers to resurrect through the Sacred Flame with the help of the Archon. The Sacred Flame is a conduit to the Night Kingdom and the Wayobs, and is fueled by Contending Fire produced by battles between Natlan people. Given that Tezcatlipoca is a god of conflict, I think these rules mentioned in the trailer are referring to the Sacred Flame system of resurrection. 

Therefore, at some point during Natlan’s history, the beef between the Sage and the Lord of the Night became so severe that the Lord of the Night’s contribution to the system of Natlan was intentionally covered up- which may be what Capitano is hinting at in the 5.1 trailer when he says Mavuika is withholding information from us. 

This was a bit of a tangent, but I promise it’s relevant to the thesis. At the conclusion of the Five Suns myth, Quetzalcoatl descends into Mictlan to find the bones of the humans he created under earlier suns, and who were destroyed by various god antics, including those of Tezcatlipoca. He then uses his own blood to bring the humans back to life. Maybe my insistence that everyone in Natlan is dead isn’t so vibe based after all. 

The Center 

It is time for me to confess something. In actuality, these 2k words were elaborate setup for a pun. 

Here it goes: At the conclusion of the K’iche’ Maya creation story, the Popul Vuh, the gods finally find the perfect material for creating humans who will worship them: maize. The hurricane god and the Quetzal serpent sculpt the first humans out of a maize paste, with water for blood. Conveniently, these two can be directly compared to Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca - further supporting the possibility of the latter’s important role in Natlan’s history. 

Earlier, I mentioned how water and mirrors were closely associated, and how the glyphs for blood and smoke look similar. The Flute of Ezpitzal name and lore reference the protection of humans with a ‘labyrinth of mirrors,’ smoking mirrors (weapon passive), and blood through the word ezpitzal. The ezpitzal is also closely linked to Tezcatlipoca, one of the Aztec creator deities. Using this symbolism, the smoke and mirrors represent the water, or blood, used to (re)create humans. Which then means of course that the second ingredient needed for humans is maze - I’m sorry, maize. 

And if the humans are made out of maze…well then they must be dead. 

Sabre’s Fun Fact Science Corner (with bonus Latam literature section just for Schwan):

The Genshin writers love the story of the Hero Twins defeating Seven Macaw and replacing his teeth with maize - they’ve referenced it at least three times so far. The weirdest is the flipped version where the human priest Maghan sacrifices himself and combines his blood with animal teeth and dirt to create grainfruit (maize). Autosacrifice of blood in particular was a very important Maya ritual. I appreciate their commitment to keeping the maize cannibalism implications going.  

The Narzissenkreuz Ordo associated lore has had multiple references to circular ruins and mirrors (which may simply just be the Alice in Wonderland reference) - however, we do know that one Ordo member went to Natlan looking for Something. “The Circular Ruins” is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges where a man tries to create another man through dreaming, with the help of a deity known as “Fire.” The story itself references Through the Looking-Glass as well. 

This one is full credit to Schwan but there’s a Mexican novel Pedro Páramo, which was very influential on other Latin American writers like Gabriel García Márquez. The plot is basically that this guy travels to the town where his father is from to meet him and then it turns out that everyone in the town is dead. It’s very core. 

It turns out Westworld season 1 is extremely HYV core - I just know some guy there saw the last episode and had their brain rewired, much like Dawei seeing Misato Evangelion for the first time

References: https://www.library.pima.gov/content/man-in-the-maze/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27itoi https://westworld.fandom.com/wiki/The_Maze

[trashcanlore]

sooooo....boosting this again in light of the natlan AQ

Kabbalah in the Worldbuilding of Genshin Impact; Part 3: Very Impure, Very Sinful

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

The Origin of Evil

In earlier parts of this theory, we've discussed how the elements of Teyvat and their ideals are similar to the sefirot of Kabbalah, as well as the implications of the similarities between Descenders and the Kabbalistic Primordial Man. In this section, we'll be discussing how the metaphors used to describe evil in Kabbalah are made literal in Genshin, specifically in the form of the Gnoses and the Heavenly Principles. We’ll also be connecting the Traveler’s role as RPG ProtagonistTM to the Kabbalistic concept of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) and how that relates to their role in the good-evil duality. 

When it comes to the concept of evil in kabbalah, there are generally two perspectives considered: 1) evil is the result of an imbalance in the dichotomy of divine mercy vs divine judgment, and/or 2) the existence of evil is an inherent part of creation that can be affected by the actions of humans.

The Zohar, a foundational text of Jewish Kabbalah and massively influential on Western esotericism, details several explanations for the origin of evil. This theory does not contain a comprehensive analysis of the philosophy of evil in Kabbalah, but we’ve tried to at least mention or summarize the core concepts that can be tied directly into discussion of Genshin’s worldbuilding. 

The primary explanation in the Zohar is that evil originates in the sefira of divine judgment if it is not counterbalanced by divine mercy. This creates a parallel but mirrored/inverted system of the sefirot, called the Sitra Achra, which we will refer to with the literal translation “Other Side”. This dimension is associated with death and anger, and a few other unique traits we’ll explore later on. It’s important to note that according to this perspective, the existence of evil is actually a necessary part of the divine plan for the world - some of the commandments in the Torah (Jewish law), or even regular human activities like sleeping, are described as actions that ‘appease’ the “Other Side” and keep the balance between good and evil forces in the world. The Zohar even goes as far as to suggest that the “Other Side” can function as a ‘test’ for the righteous: In order for someone to be fully righteous, they must descend completely into the realm of the “Other Side” and resist all their temptations and then emerge pure. Those who fail are doomed to become breeding grounds for demons. Interesting.

The Husks in a Nutshell

The Zohar also introduces the concept of the klippot, literally husks, shells, or peels . The name Qlipoth, which players of Honkai Star Rail might be more familiar with, is just another spelling of the same term.

The Zohar’s conception of the sefirot is like a nesting doll: the sefirot are one inside the other, like concentric circles, and the klippot are the shells each sefira makes around the one inside it, as illustrated in the drawings below, where each ring or square represents one of the sefirot.

This ties in to another one of the Zohar’s explanations for the origin of evil: evil has always been mixed in with the sefira of Keter, the first to be emanated, and in order for reality to be formed, the evil had to be purified out. This was done by repeatedly creating worlds and destroying them, until the creative divine energy was purified. Think of it like when you’re washing something you’ve dyed, and it takes multiple washes for the dye to stop bleeding.

This process leaves behind “shards” of evil, which become the foundations of the dimension of evil, the “Other Side”. The Zohar names some of the klippot as direct counterparts to the sefirot, giving them equivalent roles in their respective dimensions, but there is no consistent or complete description of all the names or comparisons. 

Similar to the process of creation and destruction described above, Rabbi Isaac Luria (very influential Kabbalist in the 16th century) described a process where there are multiple iterations of the creation of the world, resulting from the dilution of divine energy as it is emanated into the void where reality is created. (For a more detailed explanation of this, check out Part 2.) Luria compares the sefirot to vessels filled with divine light, and the farther these vessels get from the source of the light, the weaker they get. Eventually the vessels shatter and form the klippot, which here are technically fragments of the divine and not inherently evil. However, unlike the sefirot that can balance each other, these fragments are isolated and intense attributes of the divine that eventually become evil and demonic. 

In the context of Genshin, the klippot take the form of the Gnoses, reflecting their role as both remains of evil and fragments of the divine isolated from the source. 

Demons and Dead Descenders

Back in Part 1 of this theory, we briefly discussed the implications of both the inverted Irminsul and the Demon Gods, or Archons, in the context of Kabbalah. We hypothesized that Teyvat is in the dimension of evil, aka the “Other Side,” and the Archons have demon names to indicate their alignment with each of the evil equivalents of the sefirot: the klippot. There is no standardized list of demons associated with the “Other Side,” so we think that they are using the Goetic demon names instead, like some historical sources have done in their incomplete lists. 

We also suggested that the Gnoses themselves could represent the klippot of each element, the “shell” around the sefirot. This was based on the information we knew about the Gnoses at the time which was basically that: 

a. It is an “internal magical focus that resonates directly with Celestia itself,” and represents the archon’s status as one of The Seven (Archon Quest, Prologue, Act III, Ending Note). This may be related to Zhongli’s concern that giving up his Gnosis will mean that he cannot defend Liyue anymore (Zhongli Character Stories: Gnosis)

b. It can gather elemental energy for the Archon, presumably acting as some kind of amplifier, given that the Archons have elemental abilities without a Gnosis (Nahida Character Story: Gnosis). This is presumably how the Akasha (and the Oratrice) was able to be powered by the Gnosis, and how Nahida was able to use the power of two Gnoses to access Irminsul and delete Rukkhadevata, something she could not do with her own power (dendro+electro amplifying reaction indeed). 

The Fontaine Archon Quest and subsequent Neuvillette character stories introduced two new crucial pieces of information that cemented the role of the Gnoses in this theory: 

a. The Gnoses are the remains of the Third Descender, and since they are remains, they are cursed. Skirk even says that the Gnosis “smells” “very similar to a god's ‘curse’.”

Skirk: Regardless, you should probably get rid of objects of "misfortune," to prevent any disasters from befalling you.

 Skirk: To live is in itself a blessing. But once a person dies, the bonds he once had with this world shall all turn to curses.

b. The Primordial One was wounded in the “great war of vengeance” (probably when the Second Who Came arrived) and couldn’t “suppress the original order” of the world anymore. They and the “one who came after” created the Gnoses from the Third Descender and used them to “subdue and control the resentment and loathing of the world.” This seems to have created a new order to the world, where the remaining primordial “fragments” were destroyed, and humans gained the “seven remembrances.” (Neuvillette Character Story: Vision). This is implied to be related to the Archon War and to humans receiving Visions, which is described as a “shattered shard” of an Archon’s authority. 

With this updated information, we have more evidence for our claims that Teyvat is in the realm of the “Other Side,” and that the Gnoses are the klippot. Here we compare key traits of the Gnoses and the Kabbalistic metaphors used for evil:

While the Gnoses and the “inverted” world of Teyvat are certainly the most overt references to the klippot and the “Other Side” in Genshin lore, derivations of these concepts are sprinkled throughout the worldbuilding in the form of repeated references to ‘shards’ and ‘husks’ of power and will. In the next section, we’ll go through two primary categories where the klippot of Genshin can be found: Death and the anger it leaves behind, and judgment, which includes the concept of sin in Teyvat, and speculation about how the Heavenly Principles turned Teyvat into the “Other Side.”

Rest in Pieces: Death and Anger

As you may have noticed, dying in Teyvat is not exactly straightforward. Death is meant to be a sort of recycling/reincarnation process via the leylines, but it seems like there are infinite exceptions to this rule. Hilichurls are cursed to never be able to enter the leylines, and thus are never able to truly die. When gods die, they can stick around indefinitely as corrosive and resentful energy (like Yaksha’s Karma and Inazuman Tataragami), or their remains can be used to permanently change the environment, like Rukkhadevata creating the Harvisptokhm out of Egeria’s remains to seal Tunigi Hollow. God-like individuals have also ‘died’ after being split in pieces, and those pieces contain some aspect of their will or consciousness, like Liloupar or Hermanubis and his Ba fragments. The Ba fragments are even associated with specific traits like the sefirot are: Sethos specifically mentions might and glory, which could correspond to the sefirot of Gevurah and Hod respectively. Both these and the resentful energy of things like the Tataragami can influence the actions of humans who come in contact with these fragments and remains. 

The will of more ordinary people can also remain after death: the Shadowy Husk enemy descriptions call them “nothing but a husk,” and that “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."” 

All shall decay in the end, and this is all that is left of the Black Serpent Knights amidst the merciless march of their sins, curses, and time itself.

We also have instances where a powerful being’s sacrifice provides the power for an ‘impossible’ event to occur: the Goddess of Flowers using her body as a conduit to give Deshret access to forbidden knowledge, or Sybilla sacrificing her life to create Phobos. Sybilla, who was likely also a Seelie, is described as being from the land of the dead - more on Seelies later. And most relevantly, we have the death of the Third Descender being used to create the Gnoses. 

Logically, this death-associated release of power makes sense In a world that is also the “Other Side.” But it also seems to be a double-edged sword: just like how the order of the world itself is held together with the Gnoses sourced from death, the death of other powerful beings can destabilize it. 

And speaking of the Gnoses - how is it that ‘death’ energy can be used to channel elemental energy, which should belong to the sefirot? As we mentioned earlier, that’s because the klippot and the sefirot are derived from the same divine source material - at their core, the realm of the divine and the realm of the demonic are the same. The distinction between these powers in Genshin is their source: are these the true elemental powers original to this world, or is this the power stolen by the Heavenly Principles? 

Teyvat has its own “laws”: Judgment, Sin, and Curses

Earlier we mentioned that the Zohar’s primary explanation for the origin of evil is an excess of divine judgment. In Kabbalistic thought, divine judgment refers to the setting of limits during creation - without it there would be no distinction between anything and the world would just be an everything soup. For more on this idea and its usage in the Fontaine AQ, check here. When it comes to the human expression of this idea, “limits” would be equivalent to the concept of laws, both natural (like physics) and legal (like the concept of social contract).

The Heavenly Principles are thought to be the highest power of “law” in Teyvat, described in the Scroll of Streaming Song as “the universal law created in heaven, the divine laws established in the beginning.” 

Nahida also tells use that the Gnoses represent the laws of the Heavenly Principles: 

Nahida: I'm sure you remember the entity that changed your fate — the Heavenly Principles. Nahida: In fact, the Heavenly Principles has been quiet since the Khaenri'ah disaster five hundred years ago. I used this point as leverage against The Doctor. Nahida: I told him that the Heavenly Principles may be awakened if I destroyed a Gnosis. Although it was just a bluff, he still fell for it. Nahida: I assumed that the Heavenly Principles wouldn't just stand by and let such extensive damage to its "laws" take place.

What do these laws entail, exactly? Rukkhadevata in Scroll of Streaming Song explains:

"One may only bow down and worship Vaana of the heavenly spirits — no arrogation, deception, or trickery is permitted." "If one dares to imitate the forbidden arts, only calamity awaits at the edge of divine knowledge.”

As expected, these “divine laws" include definitions of sins, and conveniently for us, these sins tend to be punished with curses, yet another misfortune associated with the klippot.

There are three* curses specifically associated with the Heavenly Principles: 

The “curse of the wilderness” which turned non-pure-blood Khaenriahns into hillichurls (but may be older than the Cataclysm considering hillichurls have been around since before that time and there are other references to humans turning into various monsters that aren’t associated with the Cataclysm)

The curse of immortality put on pure-blood Khaenriahns during the Cataclysm

The Seelie curse, which has multiple variations: a. Arama says the Seelies were cursed to become “empty husks” if they fell in love with a human. The curse would make them lose their intelligence and their bodies would shrink, becoming the little treasure Seelies found in exploration  b. Wolfy in the Imaginarium Theater talks about the Boar Tribe who were forced to place parts of themselves on a scale, and then lose those parts of themselves, as a punishment. The description of what happened to these boars sounds a lot like the Seelie curse. Wolfy: Those boars who placed their heads on the scales became wolves, lizards, and snakes, leaving only their strength. Those who offered their muscles became rabbits, leaping three paces to a bound, instinctively guiding people to treasure.

*Paimon voice* “Maybe it should be called the rule of four!”: While we don’t know yet if this is associated with the Heavenly Principles, Skirk references a god’s curse, which in context seems to be related to the Gnoses and the fact that Gnoses are the remains of a dead Descender.

In summary, the Heavenly Principles, their “divine laws” and corresponding curses and punishments are the Teyvat equivalent of the excessive divine judgment that leads to the formation of the “Other Side”. According to the Zohar, the “Other Side" and the klippot sustain themselves through stealing divine energy and feeding off human sin. We’ve already discussed how the Gnoses are the means for stealing divine energy, so how does human sin play a role in this equation?

The Sinners Are All That's Left

After the war with the Second Who Came, and the Seelies were cursed, the Heavenly Principles established the order of Teyvat using the power from the death of the Third Descender: the Gnoses. They then had the gods of each nation fight to the death for the chance to win this power and become representative of their “law”, creating resentment in many places across Teyvat. Given what we know about the klippot, we must consider the Archon War as the Heavenly Principles creating strife and death to power themselves enough to maintain the order of Teyvat. 

A similar system is presented in one of the in-game novels, Princess Mina of the Fallen Nation, which tells the story of a princess prophesied to bring destruction. Her nation is plagued with wars due to “Nakura’s Hex,” which drains the life force from people and the environment to strengthen the soldiers, who then in turn, continue fighting to be the most powerful, which leads to them draining more life. In the fifth volume, Mina and her slayful samurai bestie arrive at the Sky Tower, where they meet some priests and learn the truth of their world: Nakura’s Hex was originally created to preserve the “slowly declining” world. Mina learns that she must sacrifice herself, destroy the current world, and use the stored up power from Nakura’s Hex to create a new one. It’s left ambiguous if she succeeds. 

If the Heavenly Principles are able to gain power from wars and death, then they should also be able to gain power from sin as well. And lucky for this theory, we just finished the Fontaine region, where this very concept was explored in the Archon Quest. In order to collect enough power to destroy her Archon throne and return the Hydro authority to Neuvillette, Focalors created the Oratrice. The Oratrice pronounced verdicts during court cases and converted the people’s belief in justice into Indemnitium, which was then used to power Fontaine. In reality though, most of this power was stored up to eventually kill Focalors. In other words, the crimes and well, sins, people committed against each other generated tangible power that could be used by a god. 

In this context, the fact that the title “Sinner” is associated with the cataclysm and Khaenri’ah, and the recent reveal that the Five Sinners split a “world-shattering” Abyssal power between each other become more significant. 

Considering all that we’ve discussed regarding the use of death as a power source in Teyvat and its connection to the Heavenly Principles in their capacity as the Other Side, we are left wondering if the Sinners attempted their own Third Descender moment. In the context of what we’ve theorized about the Primordial Human Project previously, Rhinedottir’s role as a Sinner feels particularly relevant here. Whatever it was exactly that the Sinners were trying to do, their power definitely was “world-shattering,” since 500 years later Teyvat is still recovering from their and the Heavenly Principles’ actions during the Cataclysm.

And speaking of the present day problems of Teyvat, we are now ready to talk about the role the Traveler plays in the interplay between the Heavenly Principles and the original order of Teyvat. 

The Repairing of a World More Broken Than Elon’s Twitter

Ever since the Traveler woke up in Teyvat they have been helping everyone around, whether it’s finding lost pets, defeating evil dragons, finding cures for the sick, cleaning buildings or leyline disorders, maybe defeating another dragon… whether big or small there’s no feat that’s beneath our protagonist. That’s what the heroes do right? Well yes. But it also has a deeper, Kabbalistic significance.

Lurianic Kabbalah builds on the Zohar’s idea that human actions can either strengthen or appease the klippot by proposing there are also specific actions humans can do to have a positive influence on the world. There are two states the world can exist in: Tohu (chaos), where the sefirot are unbalanced, and Tikkun (repair), where the sefirot are harmonized together. Luria taught that humans could contribute to the “Repairing of the World” (Tikkun Olam) by strictly adhering to the religious laws of the Torah. With time, the idea that humans can contribute to the improvement of God’s world by performing acts of kindness and altruism has become mainstream in Judaism, and in the modern day, Tikkun Olam has come to refer to the value of social justice. By performing these “repairing” actions, the Divine Energy that’s “trapped” inside the klippot is released and returns to its rightful place, contributing to the balance and harmony of the world.

Similar concepts are referenced directly in Genshin: In Chinese, the Heavenly Principles are Tiānlǐ: “Heavenly Order.” Li refers to a concept in Confucianism that literally translates to ‘rite,’ and refers to specific ritual actions that connect human action to the harmony of the greater order of the universe. Li is not necessarily religious rites as it also includes “basic” human interactions with each other and nature.

Another similar idea is the alchemical As Above, So Below, which is generally interpreted to refer to either the movement of the celestial bodies affecting events on Earth, or the correspondences between the macrocosm and the microcosm (the human being). You may recognize this second idea from Part 2 of this theory. 

In other words, this means that the actions that humans take in the material world can have a direct impact on the spiritual world (in Judaism) or on the larger movements or changes of the rest of the universe (Li and alchemy). These concepts are all relevant in our discussion of the role of the Traveler, but here we will also be using it to illustrate how the Heavenly Principles have control over Teyvat. 

The concept of As Above, So Below has been mentioned in the context of the Heavenly Principles in Scroll of Streaming Song:

"O wise Princess, if your wisdom is truly as the legends of the people say," "Please answer my second riddle as you did the first." "What rises from the earth, then descends from the sky," "No one has seen it, yet it sees all," "As above, so below, and as at the bottom, so too, the top," "Yet only top to bottom may be, and never bottom to top?" That princess of (...) answered thusly: "You speak of the universal law created in heaven, the divine laws established in the beginning." "No one has seen the eternal law, yet it governs all.”

The Goddess of Flowers is implying here that technically this principle should apply to the Heavenly Principles and their laws, but in the order of Teyvat, only the law can govern the “below,” the world, and the world can not reciprocate their influence on the “above.” This would mean that human action on Teyvat actually does not have an effect on the “sky,” which is the spiritual realm. In the Flower of Paradise Lost artifact lore, she says that the "master of the heavens, consumed by fear for the rising tide of delusion and breakthroughs, sent down the divine nails to mend the land, laying waste to the mortal realm..." This suggests that the sealing off of the connection between Teyvat and the heavens is the result of the Heavenly Principles’ fear of the power of the “invaders” and the effect they and other humans could have on them from the human ‘realm’ of Teyvat. 

More simply, this means that the Heavenly Principles are actively preventing the humans of Teyvat from performing the “Repairing of the World”. 

The (semi)literal translation of Zhongli’s burst voiceline also references this, but in connection with Li and Confucianism, rather than alchemy: “Heaven moves; all follows.” In this scenario, he, as the Archon, has the authority to act as the executor for the Heavenly Principles’ law (Tian Li), and invokes “heaven” to set a limit/boundary. You can even see this illustrated with how his burst stops the enemies from moving, as he restores ‘order’. (Credit to Cristal Marie for this insight)

The one exception to the restriction set by the Heavenly Principles seems to be the Traveler, whose helpful acts are excellent displays of “Repairing the World”: Indeed, while Traveler was initially just showing their good nature, many of their actions have contributed to restoring a balance to a Teyvat that seems to be in a state of “Tohu” (chaos).

Examples are varied and extensive, but we can categorize Traveler’s actions as follows:

Returning things to their rightful place: repairing the Statues of the Seven by returning the Oculi, helping the Seelie return to their courts.

Repairing and balancing Leylines: cleansing Leyline disorders at places like Chenyu Vale, the different islands of Inazuma, cleansing leftover Forbidden Knowledge at Sumeru.

Aiding people and living beings: from the Aranara and Melusines to Scaramouche and Dvalin,  ill or struggling NPCs,  lingering ghosts, etc

Defeating and suppressing evil forces: Osial, Beisht, an eroded Azhdaha, the Thunder Manifestation, the Tatarigami at Yashiori, different agents of the Abyss Order, the All-Devouring Narwhal.

Performing appropriate rituals: the Funerary Rites for the “passing” of Morax, the Rainjade Rite at Chenyu Vale, the Festival Utsava, the Watatsumi Goryou Matsuri, the Sakura Cleansing Ritual, etc.

All this repairing, cleansing, returning things to correct places and balancing elemental energy fits with the Lurianic description of how “Repairing the World” is achieved.

In the first part of this theory we compared the Kabbalistic sefirot with the seven elements of Teyvat, as different “colors” derived from elemental energy. We also mentioned how the famous array of the Sefirot in the “Tree of Life” is an idealized state: the truth is that they won’t be arranged in such a balanced way until the coming of the Messianic Age, and that will only be achieved once the repairing of the world is complete. In this context then, the Traveler’s actions should be accelerating the arrival of this ideal state. 

But… isn’t Teyvat the world of the “Other Side”? Who exactly is the Traveler aiding with their actions? Aren’t they strengthening the klippot by maintaining the order set by the Heavenly Principles, who have been accused of being “usurpers” chaining the world to an unnatural order? Or is the Traveler actually reversing this and returning the world to its natural state?

There are a few instances when we are led to doubt that the Traveler is doing the ‘correct’ thing as they purify/restore places in Teyvat. During the Chenyu Vale world questline, Lingyuan says that the adeptal energy the Traveler gets from Fujin has the power to “suppress nature” and that their efforts to perform the Rainjade Rite go against nature as it is intended to be. She also makes a cryptic comment about how humans used to be part of nature, but are no longer. This may simply refer to how humans affect the world around them, or perhaps it’s meant also as commentary on the Traveler’s actions and the way they are generally considered to be positive and restorative. 

In this case, if the Traveler is doing wrong, could it be that the “true Messiah” is out there, being labeled as a “sinner” for trying to release Divine Energy from the evil grasp of the klippot?

After all, we know someone who fits that description: the Traveler’s own sibling.

Purification through Sin: how the Abyss Order are the good guys akshually

There was actually a movement in Jewish mysticism that believed that doing exactly the opposite of what Luria advised (following the laws of the Torah) is what would achieve the complete repairing of the world. This movement  started in the 17th century, in the Ottoman Empire, when a man named Sabbatai Zvi claimed to be the long awaited Messiah. It wasn’t the first time this happened, indeed Christianity arose from one of those very claims. 

The Sabbatean movement, like many before them, drew criticism from more conservative Rabbis particularly due to the seemingly unstable behavior of their leader: sometimes boldly going against Jewish law, other times falling into periods of melancholy that were “unbecoming” of the Messiah. The breaking point for the detractors of Sabbatai Zvi was his public conversion to Islam after being threatened with torture and execution by the Ottoman authorities, effectively becoming an apostate to the Jewish faith. Despite this, Sabbatai Zvi had a big following, and his conversion didn’t deter them.

What’s relevant about this Messianic claimant movement is that much of the fuel for its credibility was based on Kabbalistic thought. Nathan of Gaza, an accomplished student of Jewish theology, was the first believer that Sabbatai was the real Messiah, and from then on used his deep knowledge of Lurianic Kabbalah to argue why Zvi’s questionable actions were what had to be expected from the Messiah, including the most serious sins. Much of the reasoning for this is explained in a text that is still polemical today: the Treatise on Dragons.

Nathan argued that even though the entirety of the created universe was emanated from Divine Light, that doesn’t mean all of this divine essence was used up: there was a good amount of Divine Light that wasn’t involved in creation, and in a way “didn’t desire” to become created matter.  When the endless Divine Light “retracted” to make space for the future world, the leftover “Void realm” had remnants of Divine Light that didn’t want to be part of creation, and were even hostile to it. Afterwards, Divine Light entered the Void in a “vertical line”, penetrating it and kicking off creation, including the subsequent shattering of the vessels mentioned earlier. Eventually, the shattered fragments of the vessels and the hostile remnants of Divine Light  formed the realm of the “Other Side.” So now, the upper levels of the Void is where the created world is located, and it’s also the realm where humans can aid the “Repairing of the World”. However the lower levels, where the klippot are located, are so evil that only the Messiah themselves can “repair” them. That’s why the soul of the Messiah was cast into the “Other Side” even before creation, when Divine Light penetrated into the Void Realm. This soul would be particularly connected with the klippot, incarnating many times across history as different people that would endure terrible temptations and suffering, all with the objective of purifying the klippot at the bottom of the “hole of the great Abyss”, from the inside.

 While this interpretation of Lurianic Kabbalah was devised to explain the behavior and life of one particular individual (Sabbatai Zvi), for our Genshin Impact theory it serves as an explanation for the actions of the Traveler’s Sibling. After all, we have never seen them hold contempt or hatred against Teyvat like the exiled dragon sovereigns seem to have. Rather, the Sibling and the Abyss Order focus on toppling the Heavenly Principles. The Sibling even seems to have tried to reverse the initial effects of the Cataclysm, attempting to save Khaenri’ah and parts of Teyvat along with Dainsleif, until whatever they saw at the “sea of flowers at the end” made them change their mind. Abyss Sibling is also constantly somber and serious, even when chatting amicably with the Traveler during Bedtime Story, which fits Nathan’s explanation on how different people containing the soul of the Messiah have tended to have a melancholy disposition, constantly battling the temptation to sin and struggling with the uglier side of life.

All this, plus the constant description of the Abyss Order and other Khaenri’ans as “sinners” leads us to think that the actions of its current leader, the Princess/Prince of the Abyss, are in line with the Sabbatean notion of “purifying the klippot through sin”.

Why Am I A Broken Messiah and other old Death Note anime lyrics

One final comparison to draw in this “redemption through sin” is actually from different Abrahamic religions other than Judaism. Gerschom Scholem in his book about Sabbateanism also points out the similarities of this movement to at least one, or perhaps more, early Gnostic Christian sects.

It’s difficult to discern what was genuine belief and what were accusations of heresy by mainstream Christian theologians, but there are at least two Gnostic groups that seemed to identify themselves with Biblical characters typically associated with sin. 

The Cainites allegedly claimed that since the God of the Old Testament was nothing but an evil imposter, salvation would come by opposing his laws and engaging in sin. In their narrative, Cain was but a victim that triumphed over the evil Demiurge and his minion: Abel, while Judas was either the most illuminated disciple of Jesus, who aided him in opening a path for humanity’s salvation, or a hero who opposed the evil Jesus’s attempt to further hide the truth of the world. The second group were the Ophites, who identified themselves with the snake that invited Adam and Eve to go against God’s prohibitions in the Garden of Eden, because doing so would actually reveal the truth about the Imposter God and the True God to them and their descendants.

Whether what we know of these groups is reliable or false, we also know that there was a more generalized Gnostic belief that humans were “sinful bodies” made of “lesser matter” that nonetheless contained “sparks of divine essence” within them: it was through the discarding of the “lesser body” and the “ascending of the divine sparks” towards the Pleroma that humanity could gain salvation. This is very reminiscent of the Kabbalistic notion of “releasing the sparks of Divine Light” from the “husks” of the klippot.

Gnosticism is one of the chief inspirations for the world building of Genshin Impact. If the notion of the Other Side accurately describes the condition of Teyvat, and the characteristics of the klippot are comparable to the order imposed by the Heavenly Principles, then it’s very likely that “repairing” the world will be done in a Gnostic way, whether it’s escaping Teyvat or entirely destroying it.

Also, the Twins having opposite stances when it comes to the “salvation of the world” could be compared to the Christian and Islamic belief that the arrival of the end times will be heralded by a fake “Anti Messiah”, right before the appearance of the actual Messiah of salvation. It could be then, considering the role of the “Sinful Messiah” described before, that the Princess/Prince of the Abyss is behaving like the Antichrist precisely because this is a necessary role to be performed so the Traveler can bring salvation to the world.

At this time, we still don't know which of the twins are the one whose actions are actually leading to the “salvation” of Teyvat. Is the Traveler unwittingly helping the klippot exert tyrannical control over an exiled, scattered Divine Light? Or are they returning the world to a state older than the Heavenly Principles? Is the Abyss Order actually trying to liberate Teyvat from the oppression of the “Other Side,” or are they just looking for power and vengeance? And what role does the exiled Dragon race play in this dichotomy of divine and demonic? 

Perhaps Natlan can bring us those long-awaited answers…

References:

The Origins of the Klippot / Qliphoth & Sitra Achra in the Zohar - Kabbalah on the Problem of Evil

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

Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Scholem). Sixth Lecture: The Zohar II: The Theosophic Doctrine of the Zohar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_(Confucianism)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_above,_so_below

Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Scholem). Seventh Lecture: Isaac Luria and his School

Introduction to Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism - Part 10/14 - Christian and Lurianic Kabbalah https://youtu.be/gqvcifVWjvM?si=BYS_7FbX8lz9iQJy 

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

Introduction to Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism - Part 12/14 - Sabbateanism and Mystical Heresy II https://youtu.be/F5QU5ylhOqA?si=dSR4SEbnkMfCUJj_ 

Sabbatai Ṣevi : the mystical Messiah, 1626-1676 (Scholem). Chapter 3: The Beginnings of the Movement in Palestine (1665)

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

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

Anticosmicism: Gnostic Dualism https://gnosticismexplained.org/anticosmicism-gnostic-dualism/ 

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

[trashcanlore]

Kabbalah in the Worldbuilding of Genshin Impact; Part 3: Very Impure, Very Sinful

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

The Origin of Evil

In earlier parts of this theory, we've discussed how the elements of Teyvat and their ideals are similar to the sefirot of Kabbalah, as well as the implications of the similarities between Descenders and the Kabbalistic Primordial Man. In this section, we'll be discussing how the metaphors used to describe evil in Kabbalah are made literal in Genshin, specifically in the form of the Gnoses and the Heavenly Principles. We’ll also be connecting the Traveler’s role as RPG ProtagonistTM to the Kabbalistic concept of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) and how that relates to their role in the good-evil duality. 

When it comes to the concept of evil in kabbalah, there are generally two perspectives considered: 1) evil is the result of an imbalance in the dichotomy of divine mercy vs divine judgment, and/or 2) the existence of evil is an inherent part of creation that can be affected by the actions of humans.

The Zohar, a foundational text of Jewish Kabbalah and massively influential on Western esotericism, details several explanations for the origin of evil. This theory does not contain a comprehensive analysis of the philosophy of evil in Kabbalah, but we’ve tried to at least mention or summarize the core concepts that can be tied directly into discussion of Genshin’s worldbuilding. 

The primary explanation in the Zohar is that evil originates in the sefira of divine judgment if it is not counterbalanced by divine mercy. This creates a parallel but mirrored/inverted system of the sefirot, called the Sitra Achra, which we will refer to with the literal translation “Other Side”. This dimension is associated with death and anger, and a few other unique traits we’ll explore later on. It’s important to note that according to this perspective, the existence of evil is actually a necessary part of the divine plan for the world - some of the commandments in the Torah (Jewish law), or even regular human activities like sleeping, are described as actions that ‘appease’ the “Other Side” and keep the balance between good and evil forces in the world. The Zohar even goes as far as to suggest that the “Other Side” can function as a ‘test’ for the righteous: In order for someone to be fully righteous, they must descend completely into the realm of the “Other Side” and resist all their temptations and then emerge pure. Those who fail are doomed to become breeding grounds for demons. Interesting.

The Husks in a Nutshell

The Zohar also introduces the concept of the klippot, literally husks, shells, or peels . The name Qlipoth, which players of Honkai Star Rail might be more familiar with, is just another spelling of the same term.

The Zohar’s conception of the sefirot is like a nesting doll: the sefirot are one inside the other, like concentric circles, and the klippot are the shells each sefira makes around the one inside it, as illustrated in the drawings below, where each ring or square represents one of the sefirot.

This ties in to another one of the Zohar’s explanations for the origin of evil: evil has always been mixed in with the sefira of Keter, the first to be emanated, and in order for reality to be formed, the evil had to be purified out. This was done by repeatedly creating worlds and destroying them, until the creative divine energy was purified. Think of it like when you’re washing something you’ve dyed, and it takes multiple washes for the dye to stop bleeding.

This process leaves behind “shards” of evil, which become the foundations of the dimension of evil, the “Other Side”. The Zohar names some of the klippot as direct counterparts to the sefirot, giving them equivalent roles in their respective dimensions, but there is no consistent or complete description of all the names or comparisons. 

Similar to the process of creation and destruction described above, Rabbi Isaac Luria (very influential Kabbalist in the 16th century) described a process where there are multiple iterations of the creation of the world, resulting from the dilution of divine energy as it is emanated into the void where reality is created. (For a more detailed explanation of this, check out Part 2.) Luria compares the sefirot to vessels filled with divine light, and the farther these vessels get from the source of the light, the weaker they get. Eventually the vessels shatter and form the klippot, which here are technically fragments of the divine and not inherently evil. However, unlike the sefirot that can balance each other, these fragments are isolated and intense attributes of the divine that eventually become evil and demonic. 

In the context of Genshin, the klippot take the form of the Gnoses, reflecting their role as both remains of evil and fragments of the divine isolated from the source. 

Demons and Dead Descenders

Back in Part 1 of this theory, we briefly discussed the implications of both the inverted Irminsul and the Demon Gods, or Archons, in the context of Kabbalah. We hypothesized that Teyvat is in the dimension of evil, aka the “Other Side,” and the Archons have demon names to indicate their alignment with each of the evil equivalents of the sefirot: the klippot. There is no standardized list of demons associated with the “Other Side,” so we think that they are using the Goetic demon names instead, like some historical sources have done in their incomplete lists. 

We also suggested that the Gnoses themselves could represent the klippot of each element, the “shell” around the sefirot. This was based on the information we knew about the Gnoses at the time which was basically that: 

a. It is an “internal magical focus that resonates directly with Celestia itself,” and represents the archon’s status as one of The Seven (Archon Quest, Prologue, Act III, Ending Note). This may be related to Zhongli’s concern that giving up his Gnosis will mean that he cannot defend Liyue anymore (Zhongli Character Stories: Gnosis)

b. It can gather elemental energy for the Archon, presumably acting as some kind of amplifier, given that the Archons have elemental abilities without a Gnosis (Nahida Character Story: Gnosis). This is presumably how the Akasha (and the Oratrice) was able to be powered by the Gnosis, and how Nahida was able to use the power of two Gnoses to access Irminsul and delete Rukkhadevata, something she could not do with her own power (dendro+electro amplifying reaction indeed). 

The Fontaine Archon Quest and subsequent Neuvillette character stories introduced two new crucial pieces of information that cemented the role of the Gnoses in this theory: 

a. The Gnoses are the remains of the Third Descender, and since they are remains, they are cursed. Skirk even says that the Gnosis “smells” “very similar to a god's ‘curse’.”

Skirk: Regardless, you should probably get rid of objects of "misfortune," to prevent any disasters from befalling you.

 Skirk: To live is in itself a blessing. But once a person dies, the bonds he once had with this world shall all turn to curses.

b. The Primordial One was wounded in the “great war of vengeance” (probably when the Second Who Came arrived) and couldn’t “suppress the original order” of the world anymore. They and the “one who came after” created the Gnoses from the Third Descender and used them to “subdue and control the resentment and loathing of the world.” This seems to have created a new order to the world, where the remaining primordial “fragments” were destroyed, and humans gained the “seven remembrances.” (Neuvillette Character Story: Vision). This is implied to be related to the Archon War and to humans receiving Visions, which is described as a “shattered shard” of an Archon’s authority. 

With this updated information, we have more evidence for our claims that Teyvat is in the realm of the “Other Side,” and that the Gnoses are the klippot. Here we compare key traits of the Gnoses and the Kabbalistic metaphors used for evil:

While the Gnoses and the “inverted” world of Teyvat are certainly the most overt references to the klippot and the “Other Side” in Genshin lore, derivations of these concepts are sprinkled throughout the worldbuilding in the form of repeated references to ‘shards’ and ‘husks’ of power and will. In the next section, we’ll go through two primary categories where the klippot of Genshin can be found: Death and the anger it leaves behind, and judgment, which includes the concept of sin in Teyvat, and speculation about how the Heavenly Principles turned Teyvat into the “Other Side.”

Rest in Pieces: Death and Anger

As you may have noticed, dying in Teyvat is not exactly straightforward. Death is meant to be a sort of recycling/reincarnation process via the leylines, but it seems like there are infinite exceptions to this rule. Hilichurls are cursed to never be able to enter the leylines, and thus are never able to truly die. When gods die, they can stick around indefinitely as corrosive and resentful energy (like Yaksha’s Karma and Inazuman Tataragami), or their remains can be used to permanently change the environment, like Rukkhadevata creating the Harvisptokhm out of Egeria’s remains to seal Tunigi Hollow. God-like individuals have also ‘died’ after being split in pieces, and those pieces contain some aspect of their will or consciousness, like Liloupar or Hermanubis and his Ba fragments. The Ba fragments are even associated with specific traits like the sefirot are: Sethos specifically mentions might and glory, which could correspond to the sefirot of Gevurah and Hod respectively. Both these and the resentful energy of things like the Tataragami can influence the actions of humans who come in contact with these fragments and remains. 

The will of more ordinary people can also remain after death: the Shadowy Husk enemy descriptions call them “nothing but a husk,” and that “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."” 

All shall decay in the end, and this is all that is left of the Black Serpent Knights amidst the merciless march of their sins, curses, and time itself.

We also have instances where a powerful being’s sacrifice provides the power for an ‘impossible’ event to occur: the Goddess of Flowers using her body as a conduit to give Deshret access to forbidden knowledge, or Sybilla sacrificing her life to create Phobos. Sybilla, who was likely also a Seelie, is described as being from the land of the dead - more on Seelies later. And most relevantly, we have the death of the Third Descender being used to create the Gnoses. 

Logically, this death-associated release of power makes sense In a world that is also the “Other Side.” But it also seems to be a double-edged sword: just like how the order of the world itself is held together with the Gnoses sourced from death, the death of other powerful beings can destabilize it. 

And speaking of the Gnoses - how is it that ‘death’ energy can be used to channel elemental energy, which should belong to the sefirot? As we mentioned earlier, that’s because the klippot and the sefirot are derived from the same divine source material - at their core, the realm of the divine and the realm of the demonic are the same. The distinction between these powers in Genshin is their source: are these the true elemental powers original to this world, or is this the power stolen by the Heavenly Principles? 

Teyvat has its own “laws”: Judgment, Sin, and Curses

Earlier we mentioned that the Zohar’s primary explanation for the origin of evil is an excess of divine judgment. In Kabbalistic thought, divine judgment refers to the setting of limits during creation - without it there would be no distinction between anything and the world would just be an everything soup. For more on this idea and its usage in the Fontaine AQ, check here. When it comes to the human expression of this idea, “limits” would be equivalent to the concept of laws, both natural (like physics) and legal (like the concept of social contract).

The Heavenly Principles are thought to be the highest power of “law” in Teyvat, described in the Scroll of Streaming Song as “the universal law created in heaven, the divine laws established in the beginning.” 

Nahida also tells use that the Gnoses represent the laws of the Heavenly Principles: 

Nahida: I'm sure you remember the entity that changed your fate — the Heavenly Principles. Nahida: In fact, the Heavenly Principles has been quiet since the Khaenri'ah disaster five hundred years ago. I used this point as leverage against The Doctor. Nahida: I told him that the Heavenly Principles may be awakened if I destroyed a Gnosis. Although it was just a bluff, he still fell for it. Nahida: I assumed that the Heavenly Principles wouldn't just stand by and let such extensive damage to its "laws" take place.

What do these laws entail, exactly? Rukkhadevata in Scroll of Streaming Song explains:

"One may only bow down and worship Vaana of the heavenly spirits — no arrogation, deception, or trickery is permitted." "If one dares to imitate the forbidden arts, only calamity awaits at the edge of divine knowledge.”

As expected, these “divine laws" include definitions of sins, and conveniently for us, these sins tend to be punished with curses, yet another misfortune associated with the klippot.

There are three* curses specifically associated with the Heavenly Principles: 

The “curse of the wilderness” which turned non-pure-blood Khaenriahns into hillichurls (but may be older than the Cataclysm considering hillichurls have been around since before that time and there are other references to humans turning into various monsters that aren’t associated with the Cataclysm)

The curse of immortality put on pure-blood Khaenriahns during the Cataclysm

The Seelie curse, which has multiple variations: a. Arama says the Seelies were cursed to become “empty husks” if they fell in love with a human. The curse would make them lose their intelligence and their bodies would shrink, becoming the little treasure Seelies found in exploration  b. Wolfy in the Imaginarium Theater talks about the Boar Tribe who were forced to place parts of themselves on a scale, and then lose those parts of themselves, as a punishment. The description of what happened to these boars sounds a lot like the Seelie curse. Wolfy: Those boars who placed their heads on the scales became wolves, lizards, and snakes, leaving only their strength. Those who offered their muscles became rabbits, leaping three paces to a bound, instinctively guiding people to treasure.

*Paimon voice* “Maybe it should be called the rule of four!”: While we don’t know yet if this is associated with the Heavenly Principles, Skirk references a god’s curse, which in context seems to be related to the Gnoses and the fact that Gnoses are the remains of a dead Descender.

In summary, the Heavenly Principles, their “divine laws” and corresponding curses and punishments are the Teyvat equivalent of the excessive divine judgment that leads to the formation of the “Other Side”. According to the Zohar, the “Other Side" and the klippot sustain themselves through stealing divine energy and feeding off human sin. We’ve already discussed how the Gnoses are the means for stealing divine energy, so how does human sin play a role in this equation?

The Sinners Are All That's Left

After the war with the Second Who Came, and the Seelies were cursed, the Heavenly Principles established the order of Teyvat using the power from the death of the Third Descender: the Gnoses. They then had the gods of each nation fight to the death for the chance to win this power and become representative of their “law”, creating resentment in many places across Teyvat. Given what we know about the klippot, we must consider the Archon War as the Heavenly Principles creating strife and death to power themselves enough to maintain the order of Teyvat. 

A similar system is presented in one of the in-game novels, Princess Mina of the Fallen Nation, which tells the story of a princess prophesied to bring destruction. Her nation is plagued with wars due to “Nakura’s Hex,” which drains the life force from people and the environment to strengthen the soldiers, who then in turn, continue fighting to be the most powerful, which leads to them draining more life. In the fifth volume, Mina and her slayful samurai bestie arrive at the Sky Tower, where they meet some priests and learn the truth of their world: Nakura’s Hex was originally created to preserve the “slowly declining” world. Mina learns that she must sacrifice herself, destroy the current world, and use the stored up power from Nakura’s Hex to create a new one. It’s left ambiguous if she succeeds. 

If the Heavenly Principles are able to gain power from wars and death, then they should also be able to gain power from sin as well. And lucky for this theory, we just finished the Fontaine region, where this very concept was explored in the Archon Quest. In order to collect enough power to destroy her Archon throne and return the Hydro authority to Neuvillette, Focalors created the Oratrice. The Oratrice pronounced verdicts during court cases and converted the people’s belief in justice into Indemnitium, which was then used to power Fontaine. In reality though, most of this power was stored up to eventually kill Focalors. In other words, the crimes and well, sins, people committed against each other generated tangible power that could be used by a god. 

In this context, the fact that the title “Sinner” is associated with the cataclysm and Khaenri’ah, and the recent reveal that the Five Sinners split a “world-shattering” Abyssal power between each other become more significant. 

Considering all that we’ve discussed regarding the use of death as a power source in Teyvat and its connection to the Heavenly Principles in their capacity as the Other Side, we are left wondering if the Sinners attempted their own Third Descender moment. In the context of what we’ve theorized about the Primordial Human Project previously, Rhinedottir’s role as a Sinner feels particularly relevant here. Whatever it was exactly that the Sinners were trying to do, their power definitely was “world-shattering,” since 500 years later Teyvat is still recovering from their and the Heavenly Principles’ actions during the Cataclysm.

And speaking of the present day problems of Teyvat, we are now ready to talk about the role the Traveler plays in the interplay between the Heavenly Principles and the original order of Teyvat. 

The Repairing of a World More Broken Than Elon’s Twitter

Ever since the Traveler woke up in Teyvat they have been helping everyone around, whether it’s finding lost pets, defeating evil dragons, finding cures for the sick, cleaning buildings or leyline disorders, maybe defeating another dragon… whether big or small there’s no feat that’s beneath our protagonist. That’s what the heroes do right? Well yes. But it also has a deeper, Kabbalistic significance.

Lurianic Kabbalah builds on the Zohar’s idea that human actions can either strengthen or appease the klippot by proposing there are also specific actions humans can do to have a positive influence on the world. There are two states the world can exist in: Tohu (chaos), where the sefirot are unbalanced, and Tikkun (repair), where the sefirot are harmonized together. Luria taught that humans could contribute to the “Repairing of the World” (Tikkun Olam) by strictly adhering to the religious laws of the Torah. With time, the idea that humans can contribute to the improvement of God’s world by performing acts of kindness and altruism has become mainstream in Judaism, and in the modern day, Tikkun Olam has come to refer to the value of social justice. By performing these “repairing” actions, the Divine Energy that’s “trapped” inside the klippot is released and returns to its rightful place, contributing to the balance and harmony of the world.

Similar concepts are referenced directly in Genshin: In Chinese, the Heavenly Principles are Tiānlǐ: “Heavenly Order.” Li refers to a concept in Confucianism that literally translates to ‘rite,’ and refers to specific ritual actions that connect human action to the harmony of the greater order of the universe. Li is not necessarily religious rites as it also includes “basic” human interactions with each other and nature.

Another similar idea is the alchemical As Above, So Below, which is generally interpreted to refer to either the movement of the celestial bodies affecting events on Earth, or the correspondences between the macrocosm and the microcosm (the human being). You may recognize this second idea from Part 2 of this theory. 

In other words, this means that the actions that humans take in the material world can have a direct impact on the spiritual world (in Judaism) or on the larger movements or changes of the rest of the universe (Li and alchemy). These concepts are all relevant in our discussion of the role of the Traveler, but here we will also be using it to illustrate how the Heavenly Principles have control over Teyvat. 

The concept of As Above, So Below has been mentioned in the context of the Heavenly Principles in Scroll of Streaming Song:

"O wise Princess, if your wisdom is truly as the legends of the people say," "Please answer my second riddle as you did the first." "What rises from the earth, then descends from the sky," "No one has seen it, yet it sees all," "As above, so below, and as at the bottom, so too, the top," "Yet only top to bottom may be, and never bottom to top?" That princess of (...) answered thusly: "You speak of the universal law created in heaven, the divine laws established in the beginning." "No one has seen the eternal law, yet it governs all.”

The Goddess of Flowers is implying here that technically this principle should apply to the Heavenly Principles and their laws, but in the order of Teyvat, only the law can govern the “below,” the world, and the world can not reciprocate their influence on the “above.” This would mean that human action on Teyvat actually does not have an effect on the “sky,” which is the spiritual realm. In the Flower of Paradise Lost artifact lore, she says that the "master of the heavens, consumed by fear for the rising tide of delusion and breakthroughs, sent down the divine nails to mend the land, laying waste to the mortal realm..." This suggests that the sealing off of the connection between Teyvat and the heavens is the result of the Heavenly Principles’ fear of the power of the “invaders” and the effect they and other humans could have on them from the human ‘realm’ of Teyvat. 

More simply, this means that the Heavenly Principles are actively preventing the humans of Teyvat from performing the “Repairing of the World”. 

The (semi)literal translation of Zhongli’s burst voiceline also references this, but in connection with Li and Confucianism, rather than alchemy: “Heaven moves; all follows.” In this scenario, he, as the Archon, has the authority to act as the executor for the Heavenly Principles’ law (Tian Li), and invokes “heaven” to set a limit/boundary. You can even see this illustrated with how his burst stops the enemies from moving, as he restores ‘order’. (Credit to Cristal Marie for this insight)

The one exception to the restriction set by the Heavenly Principles seems to be the Traveler, whose helpful acts are excellent displays of “Repairing the World”: Indeed, while Traveler was initially just showing their good nature, many of their actions have contributed to restoring a balance to a Teyvat that seems to be in a state of “Tohu” (chaos).

Examples are varied and extensive, but we can categorize Traveler’s actions as follows:

Returning things to their rightful place: repairing the Statues of the Seven by returning the Oculi, helping the Seelie return to their courts.

Repairing and balancing Leylines: cleansing Leyline disorders at places like Chenyu Vale, the different islands of Inazuma, cleansing leftover Forbidden Knowledge at Sumeru.

Aiding people and living beings: from the Aranara and Melusines to Scaramouche and Dvalin,  ill or struggling NPCs,  lingering ghosts, etc

Defeating and suppressing evil forces: Osial, Beisht, an eroded Azhdaha, the Thunder Manifestation, the Tatarigami at Yashiori, different agents of the Abyss Order, the All-Devouring Narwhal.

Performing appropriate rituals: the Funerary Rites for the “passing” of Morax, the Rainjade Rite at Chenyu Vale, the Festival Utsava, the Watatsumi Goryou Matsuri, the Sakura Cleansing Ritual, etc.

All this repairing, cleansing, returning things to correct places and balancing elemental energy fits with the Lurianic description of how “Repairing the World” is achieved.

In the first part of this theory we compared the Kabbalistic sefirot with the seven elements of Teyvat, as different “colors” derived from elemental energy. We also mentioned how the famous array of the Sefirot in the “Tree of Life” is an idealized state: the truth is that they won’t be arranged in such a balanced way until the coming of the Messianic Age, and that will only be achieved once the repairing of the world is complete. In this context then, the Traveler’s actions should be accelerating the arrival of this ideal state. 

But… isn’t Teyvat the world of the “Other Side”? Who exactly is the Traveler aiding with their actions? Aren’t they strengthening the klippot by maintaining the order set by the Heavenly Principles, who have been accused of being “usurpers” chaining the world to an unnatural order? Or is the Traveler actually reversing this and returning the world to its natural state?

There are a few instances when we are led to doubt that the Traveler is doing the ‘correct’ thing as they purify/restore places in Teyvat. During the Chenyu Vale world questline, Lingyuan says that the adeptal energy the Traveler gets from Fujin has the power to “suppress nature” and that their efforts to perform the Rainjade Rite go against nature as it is intended to be. She also makes a cryptic comment about how humans used to be part of nature, but are no longer. This may simply refer to how humans affect the world around them, or perhaps it’s meant also as commentary on the Traveler’s actions and the way they are generally considered to be positive and restorative. 

In this case, if the Traveler is doing wrong, could it be that the “true Messiah” is out there, being labeled as a “sinner” for trying to release Divine Energy from the evil grasp of the klippot?

After all, we know someone who fits that description: the Traveler’s own sibling.

Purification through Sin: how the Abyss Order are the good guys akshually

There was actually a movement in Jewish mysticism that believed that doing exactly the opposite of what Luria advised (following the laws of the Torah) is what would achieve the complete repairing of the world. This movement  started in the 17th century, in the Ottoman Empire, when a man named Sabbatai Zvi claimed to be the long awaited Messiah. It wasn’t the first time this happened, indeed Christianity arose from one of those very claims. 

The Sabbatean movement, like many before them, drew criticism from more conservative Rabbis particularly due to the seemingly unstable behavior of their leader: sometimes boldly going against Jewish law, other times falling into periods of melancholy that were “unbecoming” of the Messiah. The breaking point for the detractors of Sabbatai Zvi was his public conversion to Islam after being threatened with torture and execution by the Ottoman authorities, effectively becoming an apostate to the Jewish faith. Despite this, Sabbatai Zvi had a big following, and his conversion didn’t deter them.

What’s relevant about this Messianic claimant movement is that much of the fuel for its credibility was based on Kabbalistic thought. Nathan of Gaza, an accomplished student of Jewish theology, was the first believer that Sabbatai was the real Messiah, and from then on used his deep knowledge of Lurianic Kabbalah to argue why Zvi’s questionable actions were what had to be expected from the Messiah, including the most serious sins. Much of the reasoning for this is explained in a text that is still polemical today: the Treatise on Dragons.

Nathan argued that even though the entirety of the created universe was emanated from Divine Light, that doesn’t mean all of this divine essence was used up: there was a good amount of Divine Light that wasn’t involved in creation, and in a way “didn’t desire” to become created matter.  When the endless Divine Light “retracted” to make space for the future world, the leftover “Void realm” had remnants of Divine Light that didn’t want to be part of creation, and were even hostile to it. Afterwards, Divine Light entered the Void in a “vertical line”, penetrating it and kicking off creation, including the subsequent shattering of the vessels mentioned earlier. Eventually, the shattered fragments of the vessels and the hostile remnants of Divine Light  formed the realm of the “Other Side.” So now, the upper levels of the Void is where the created world is located, and it’s also the realm where humans can aid the “Repairing of the World”. However the lower levels, where the klippot are located, are so evil that only the Messiah themselves can “repair” them. That’s why the soul of the Messiah was cast into the “Other Side” even before creation, when Divine Light penetrated into the Void Realm. This soul would be particularly connected with the klippot, incarnating many times across history as different people that would endure terrible temptations and suffering, all with the objective of purifying the klippot at the bottom of the “hole of the great Abyss”, from the inside.

 While this interpretation of Lurianic Kabbalah was devised to explain the behavior and life of one particular individual (Sabbatai Zvi), for our Genshin Impact theory it serves as an explanation for the actions of the Traveler’s Sibling. After all, we have never seen them hold contempt or hatred against Teyvat like the exiled dragon sovereigns seem to have. Rather, the Sibling and the Abyss Order focus on toppling the Heavenly Principles. The Sibling even seems to have tried to reverse the initial effects of the Cataclysm, attempting to save Khaenri’ah and parts of Teyvat along with Dainsleif, until whatever they saw at the “sea of flowers at the end” made them change their mind. Abyss Sibling is also constantly somber and serious, even when chatting amicably with the Traveler during Bedtime Story, which fits Nathan’s explanation on how different people containing the soul of the Messiah have tended to have a melancholy disposition, constantly battling the temptation to sin and struggling with the uglier side of life.

All this, plus the constant description of the Abyss Order and other Khaenri’ans as “sinners” leads us to think that the actions of its current leader, the Princess/Prince of the Abyss, are in line with the Sabbatean notion of “purifying the klippot through sin”.

Why Am I A Broken Messiah and other old Death Note anime lyrics

One final comparison to draw in this “redemption through sin” is actually from different Abrahamic religions other than Judaism. Gerschom Scholem in his book about Sabbateanism also points out the similarities of this movement to at least one, or perhaps more, early Gnostic Christian sects.

It’s difficult to discern what was genuine belief and what were accusations of heresy by mainstream Christian theologians, but there are at least two Gnostic groups that seemed to identify themselves with Biblical characters typically associated with sin. 

The Cainites allegedly claimed that since the God of the Old Testament was nothing but an evil imposter, salvation would come by opposing his laws and engaging in sin. In their narrative, Cain was but a victim that triumphed over the evil Demiurge and his minion: Abel, while Judas was either the most illuminated disciple of Jesus, who aided him in opening a path for humanity’s salvation, or a hero who opposed the evil Jesus’s attempt to further hide the truth of the world. The second group were the Ophites, who identified themselves with the snake that invited Adam and Eve to go against God’s prohibitions in the Garden of Eden, because doing so would actually reveal the truth about the Imposter God and the True God to them and their descendants.

Whether what we know of these groups is reliable or false, we also know that there was a more generalized Gnostic belief that humans were “sinful bodies” made of “lesser matter” that nonetheless contained “sparks of divine essence” within them: it was through the discarding of the “lesser body” and the “ascending of the divine sparks” towards the Pleroma that humanity could gain salvation. This is very reminiscent of the Kabbalistic notion of “releasing the sparks of Divine Light” from the “husks” of the klippot.

Gnosticism is one of the chief inspirations for the world building of Genshin Impact. If the notion of the Other Side accurately describes the condition of Teyvat, and the characteristics of the klippot are comparable to the order imposed by the Heavenly Principles, then it’s very likely that “repairing” the world will be done in a Gnostic way, whether it’s escaping Teyvat or entirely destroying it.

Also, the Twins having opposite stances when it comes to the “salvation of the world” could be compared to the Christian and Islamic belief that the arrival of the end times will be heralded by a fake “Anti Messiah”, right before the appearance of the actual Messiah of salvation. It could be then, considering the role of the “Sinful Messiah” described before, that the Princess/Prince of the Abyss is behaving like the Antichrist precisely because this is a necessary role to be performed so the Traveler can bring salvation to the world.

At this time, we still don't know which of the twins are the one whose actions are actually leading to the “salvation” of Teyvat. Is the Traveler unwittingly helping the klippot exert tyrannical control over an exiled, scattered Divine Light? Or are they returning the world to a state older than the Heavenly Principles? Is the Abyss Order actually trying to liberate Teyvat from the oppression of the “Other Side,” or are they just looking for power and vengeance? And what role does the exiled Dragon race play in this dichotomy of divine and demonic? 

Perhaps Natlan can bring us those long-awaited answers…

References:

The Origins of the Klippot / Qliphoth & Sitra Achra in the Zohar - Kabbalah on the Problem of Evil

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

Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Scholem). Sixth Lecture: The Zohar II: The Theosophic Doctrine of the Zohar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_(Confucianism)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_above,_so_below

Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Scholem). Seventh Lecture: Isaac Luria and his School

Introduction to Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism - Part 10/14 - Christian and Lurianic Kabbalah https://youtu.be/gqvcifVWjvM?si=BYS_7FbX8lz9iQJy 

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

Introduction to Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism - Part 12/14 - Sabbateanism and Mystical Heresy II https://youtu.be/F5QU5ylhOqA?si=dSR4SEbnkMfCUJj_ 

Sabbatai Ṣevi : the mystical Messiah, 1626-1676 (Scholem). Chapter 3: The Beginnings of the Movement in Palestine (1665)

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

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

Anticosmicism: Gnostic Dualism https://gnosticismexplained.org/anticosmicism-gnostic-dualism/ 

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

[trashcanlore]

Time to message Hoyo about the colorism...

This is the text I prepared to send to Hoyo, to their emails (genshin_cs@hoyoverse.com | support_os@hoyoverse.com), feedback, eventual surveys...

Feel free to copy paste and send this exact thing as well. Feedback is appreciated before I send anything.

Shorter version below, and imo it's better.

-----------

Subject: [Constructive Feedback] You can and should darken the skin tone of Natlan characters

Regarding the skin color discussion started by the reveal of Natlan characters:

We fans understand that the world of Teyvat is fictional, and that the Nations and characters are informed by different real cultures that end up being mixed to create a fictional setting. But it's also undeniable that some Nations in the world of Genshin are primarily inspired by some cultures more than others, and that character traits tend to reflect the main countries the Nation they inhabit is based on.

There are no consensus amongst fans regarding how accurate outfits are, and we know very little about the Nation itself, but it's undeniable that Hoyoverse researched and put a lot of effort into designing Natlan. Which is why it's a shame that all that effort is being drowned by the obvious racism and colorism reflected in the designs.

After Sumeru, Natlan was the only chance Hoyoverse would have to prove they were not afraid of designing characters with darker skin tones. Many people had hope, and the people of some of the cultures Natlan were based on hoped to see themselves represented. Even if you do not care about representation and respecting your fans, you should care about not bastardizing all of the good things that the new nation has to offer, and having at least some characters with a darker skin tone was the bare minimum that made sense.

YOU STILL HAVE TIME TO FIX THIS. Darken their skin tones. Significantly. Even Chinese fans are mocking you over your decisions, you're running out of excuses.

Hoyoverse has proven capable of change and adjusting their values over time - for example, your early depiction of female characters in Honkai Impact 3rd paled in comparison with the great writing of current female characters being put out, to not call it sexist. So me and many still want to believe you can recognize your mistake and fix it. You are a company that heavily supports fan and fan works, and who constantly invests in things that have a positive impact in society, which is why many people like to support you, and why this is so disapointing to see.

Do not let this taint your legacy. Tech otakus were supposed to change the world, remember? And perpetuating colorism is not how you should do it.

-----------

Shorter version:

Regarding the skin color discussion started by the reveal of Natlan characters:

We fans understand that the world of Teyvat is fictional, and that the Nations and characters are informed by different real cultures that are mixed to create a fictional setting.

But it's undeniable that different Nations are inspired by different cultures, and that character traits tend to reflect the main countries the Nation they inhabit is based on.

With so much clear research put into the characterization of each nation, Natlan included, it's a shame to let those efforts be drowned by designs that reflect colorist and racist views.

It would make sense to have characters with significantly darker skin tons in Natlan, and many fans hoped for that.

Hoyoverse has proven capable of change for the better - for example, your early depiction of female characters in HI3 leaned on sexism and paled in comparison with the great writing of current female characters.

There are other things that the company does right, and you can do it again. Tech otakus were supposed to change the world, remember? And perpetuating colorism is not how you should do it.

So don't let this taint your legacy. Even Chinese fans are mocking your decisions.

Darken the skin color of the Natlan characters. You still have time.

[trashcanlore]

My Chemical Marriage

The chemical wedding is an allegory used in alchemical writings to refer to the union of opposites, particularly a union that produces a new and improved product, the Rebis. 

One popular version of the allegorical wedding takes place between the Red King, the active principle (sulfur) that shapes the material and passive principle of the White Queen (mercury). However, this allegory can refer to the union of sun and moon, silver and gold, or even body and spirit. 

The Rebis refers to the end product of the magnum opus, and is typically depicted as a hermaphrodite.

The child of the chemical marriage is sometimes called the philosopher’s child and fun fact, is associated with the myth of Orion and his three fathers (Jupiter, Mercury, and Neptune). The myth is very different but I can’t help but think of the Simurgh. 

Though the chemical marriage allegory is very much referring to marriage and procreation, etc, in the context of Genshin, it’s used more to refer to a union of opposites, or a collaboration between two types of being, which will be elaborated on later. Of the four examples I will be going through, only two of these relationships have any kind of (canon) romantic associations attached to them. Basically what i’m trying to say is that this is definitely not about ships please don’t eat me.

It’s a well established trend in the history of Teyvat that there have been many god-king-like beings associated with gold or the sun, who had some kind of relationship with a knowledgeable and moon-associated woman, who then dies tragically during the god-king’s quest to Change The World. 

And now, in thematic order, I present the doomed pairings: 

Imunlaukr and the princess of Sal Vindagnyr

Imunlaukr is an outlander, destined to wield the Snow Tombed Starsilver sword to “shatter ice and snow.” The wiki cites a stanza where this name is used as a kenning for a sword. Imunlaukr tried to save Sal Vind from the catastrophic ice and snow caused by the Skyfrost Nail hitting an Irminsul tree, but he failed. Sal Vind had a princess who was also the daughter of the priestess of Vindagnyr, and was “born beneath this white tree” (Frostbearer). She is described as being “bright as the moonlight,” and had the gift of prophecy, painting her visions as frescos on the walls of the city - you can see them in the room where you find the Starsilver sword.  

Guizhong and Zhongli

According to the Stone Tablet Compilations: Vol. I, Rex Lapis descended to Liyue. This isn’t the same descending as Descenders, and it has been argued that a better translation would be ‘demoted,’ but this has similarities to the way Deshret and Remus are described as founding their kingdoms. Rex Lapis is also called Deus Auri, the Golden God, and in the Dialogue of the Desert Sages description, it says that “transformation into gold and Mora is the sole province of Deus Auri.” Guizhong’s moon connection is on the weaker end, but she is strongly associated with glaze lilies, a flower that only blooms at night, like the Nilotpala, or Lunar, lotuses. She gave Zhongli a stone dumbbell, the Memory of Dust, which contains her “wisdom.” Zhongli is still unable to unlock it, and before Guizhong’s death, she told him to forget about its contents.  On a more superficial note, Zhongli and Guizhong have a color scheme that will also be part of the pattern discussed here- black and gold and blue and white.

Remus and Sybilla

Sybilla was the former “envoy that protected the silver tree,” but she had lost her “mind and form.” However, she still retained her gift of prophecy, and told Remus about his destiny to found Remuria (and its inevitable downfall). Sybila’s loss of her physical form and mind is reminiscent of the Aranara stories about how Seelies were cursed to lose their body and intelligence if they fell in love with a human.

After making an arrangement with Remus, the silver tree that Sybilla was protecting transformed into a golden ship, which according to The History of the Decline and Fall of Remuria , was called Fortuna, and with it, Remus “descended” onto Meropis.  Together with Sybilla, Remus created Phobos, the Great/Golden Symphony. Phobos is the name of one of the moons of Mars, the red planet. Combined with the Primordial Sea-derived ichor, it would allow his people to shed their physical forms and transcend their prophesied doom. Sybilla even sacrificed her life to make the symphony possible, but she wasn’t completely dead in the end, and her lack of “persona” led to the Symphony going awry. 

And MOST IMPORTANTLY, the Golden Troupe of Remuria used a magical technique Rene called the “seal of chymical marriage,” and which I think was used to seal the Primordial Sea. Rene would later attempt to reverse its power to Evangelion-ify the people of Fontaine.

We don’t know what Remus or Sybilla actually looked like, but the color scheme of both the Remuria based artifact sets are white/blue/gold and black/blue/gold. 

Decarabian and Amos

Decarabian was the god-king and founder of Mondstadt approximately 2600 years ago. He created a wind barrier to protect his people from the storms outside (and from Andrius), and in an effort to keep his people safe, micromanaged their lives, even banning certain kinds of music that could incite rebellion (Song of Broken Pines). Interestingly, his goal to protect his people is described as a ‘dream’ multiple times in item descriptions.  The Scattered Piece of Decarabian's Dream: He tried so hard to make his dream come true, and so the fragments of that dream are still mighty.

Fragment of Decarabian’s Epic: If it were not for the song of freedom that shattered the city in an instant, Decarabian's dream would have gone on forever.  I wonder if this is meant to be another incidence of the literal power of music, like Remus’s symphony, or the Source Song.  |Decarabian had a human lover named Amos, although from her perspective, he did not understand her or her mortal love, or even the (lack of) devotion of his people. This reminds me of Scylla telling Remus that as a Usurper, he is cursed to love humanity. But maybe not understand them, which would be both of these god-kings’ downfalls.  Though Amos was human, she also seems to have had prophetic dreams: "I dreamt of ocean waves and sand, of lush forests and land." "I dreamt of boars playing in berry bushes, of a towering spire." These words she spoke to the God King in a soft tone, but they were left unheard. (Amos’ Bow) Eventually, she would join the rebellion against him, and attempt to assassinate him. Amos also fits into the blue and white color scheme, and has a feather ornament similar to Lumine in her hair: 

And we come to the piece de resistance. The ultimate example. One of the weirdest things in genshin lore (in a good way). I present:

Whatever TF is Going on With Deshret and the Goddess of Flowers

In The Lay of Al-Ahmar, Deshret is described as a “son of the sky,” with abilities that earned him the reverence of the tribes in the desert. One of his titles, Al-Ahmar, is Arabic for “the red one.” Deshret dreamed of creating a utopia for humans, and the final manifestation of that dream was the (failed) Golden Slumber, where like Remus, he attempted to separate his mind from his body. God-kings and their hiveminds…. Deshret received assistance in the form of access to forbidden knowledge from the Goddess of Flowers, also known as Nabu Malikata. The title Nabu refers to the Babylonian god of wisdom, who is associated with the planet Mercury in Babylonian astronomy. The title ‘Nabu’ has the same linguistic root as the Arabic ‘nabiyy’ (نبي) and Hebrew ‘navi’ (נביא), meaning prophet.  According to Arama, the Goddess of Flowers was a survivor of the Seelie race. After her exile, she wandered the desert, where her blood turned into streams of water that allowed gardens of water lilies to grow, which in turn birthed the Jinn. Additionally, wherever she stepped, purple flowers called Padisarahs, described as “bearing semblance to the moon,” bloomed (Flower of Paradise Lost). Together with Deshret, she founded Ay-Khanoum, meaning "[City of the] Moon Maiden.”  In addition to being known as “the red one,” Deshret is also known as the “Lord of Sand.” Combined with the Goddess of Flowers association with both water and mercury, I consider their respective titles to be a reference to Ibn Umayl’s Silvery Water and Starry Earth, a 10th century alchemical text. The ‘silvery water’ refers to mercury, or quicksilver, and the ‘starry earth’ is sulfur. This text is also referenced in the refinement materials for Dialogue of the Desert Sages, where this time the mercury-looking material is called “exalted earth.” The mercury-sulfur theory of metals was popular in medieval Islamic alchemy, and it refers to the idea that all metals are formed in the earth out of a combination of these two elements.   Like Sybilla, it’s implied the Goddess of Flowers sacrificed her life to help Deshret fulfill his goals.  Secret Keeper’s Magic Bottle: "I shall fashion you a bridge to allow you to slake your deepest wants. But you must fear not the crystalline sapphire nail..." "I will deliver you unto higher knowledge. But as I have warned, you are fated to lose much in this exchange..." "Nevertheless, hide my lesson in your heart. Remember the punishment that once was inflicted on the fallen envoys of heaven." "Know this: if there is to be hope in this world, it will be found kindling within mortals most ordinary." Wreathed in darkness, she guided her dearest friend toward the path to understanding all there was to know about the skies and the abyss. Using her body as a conduit and offering the oasis in trade, she let the dazzling radiance consume her to see his deepest desires be made manifest… It’s not clear exactly when she died, as other sources of in-game info attribute her death to the “malice of the burning sun and yellow sand,” as well as imply her death was part of a larger plan she had (Oasis Garden weapon mats). That being said, the Flower of Paradise Lost description states that after she performed this exchange, she was never seen again. As for the color scheme mentioned earlier, we don’t know what Deshret or the Goddess of Flowers looked like. Our only hints as to their human forms are the Gilded Dreams TCG card/artifact design, and a throwaway line in the Sumeru Archon Quest where Nilou says her stage costume is inspired by legends about how the Goddess of Flowers dressed.

As of 4.7, we also have the Flower of Paradise Lost TCG card, which may depicted the Goddess of Flowers. The color scheme is purple and white, but the woman in the art is wearing a dress that looks similar to Guizhongs (delulu). The crown on this card has little wings, which are reminiscent of the winged helmet Mercury is sometimes depicted as wearing. 

The defining feature of the chemical marriage is that the metaphorical union produces something greater than the sum of its parts. Sybilla and the Goddess of Flower’s sacrifices allowed the fulfillment of plans that were intended to create new worlds, something I would consider greater than the combination of god and Seelie minds. Another common thread in these transactions is wisdom, or lack thereof, with both Goddess of Flowers and Guizhong offering wisdom, and Sybilla saying that she no longer has hers - although that didn’t stop her from becoming part of Phobos. This theme of wisdom also has alchemical significance, since the philosopher’s stone is the lapis philosophorum; the 'stone of wisdom'. I’ve written a theory about the philosopher’s stone and Descenders and alchemy, including the chemical wedding motif, in the Narzissekreuz Ordo questions: you can check it out here. Two points that I want to carry over to this theory is that a) there is evidence to suggest that the philosopher’s stone and a Descender are the same in Teyvat and b) the ability to successfully change Fortuna (fate) is directly linked with Descender status.  I’m not saying that Deshret and Remus were trying to become Descenders, but there are clear thematic parallels with their goals, and Rene’s goals. Additionally, these four examples are not the only time a union resulted in world changing consequences. Records of Jueyun recounts the story of the traveler from afar and the seelie: At a far-flung moment in the distant past, the ancestor of the seelie met a traveler from afar, with whom they swore an oath of union witnessed by the three sisters of the Lunar Palace. Just thirty days later, a sudden disaster struck. The seelie and their lover fled into exile as the world collapsed around them, fleeing until the terrible calamity caught up with and seized them. Their cruel punishment was to be separated from each other for eternity and to have their memories wiped without a trace. The book goes on to directly connect this union with the curse of the Seelies that Arama mentions: The graceful but heartbroken seelie and the sisters grew more sullen and withdrawn with each passing day, to the point where their wondrous forms withered away, leaving fragments of their former selves scattered in the mountains and ruins, where they turned into tiny little life forms. They had forgotten so much, lost so much, and been stripped of their voices and wisdom, yet they continued to sing the same songs of grief. Because of this, still harboring a shred of the deep love they once had for their long-lost lover, they will act as guides to travelers who stop in the mountain mist, seeking to retrace their memories of an ancient story in long-abandoned ruins, disused makeup cabinets, and now-undecipherable poetry. Moonlight Bamboo forest has another version of the story, where the three moon sisters loved the “stars of daybreak,” and after some kind of cataclysmic event, only one (dead) moon remained in the sky. Mitternacht’s Waltz also described a sword shattering one of the moons: Two of the three bright moons that caused the perfumed sea of the primordial universe to shine and stirred up the beasts of the Arianrhod Realm were shredded by a sword that tore the horizon asunder, left in smithereens too small even for the mystical sight of the Prinzessin. Ever since the Narzissenkreuz quests, I am very suspicious of all swords mentioned in lore.  If we put all these themes and narratives together, another possible metaphorical union emerges:

Since the dawn of Genshin lore, there have been various theories regarding the duality in the designs of the twins, with some also suggesting that they are two separate halves of one being. However, I’d like to propose the opposite: if the twins follow the path of their fellow black/gold and blue/white predecessors, then it seems likely a fusion that is also a sacrifice is in the future for our protagonist.  There are other similarities between the twins and the god-king/seelie pairs. The twins have sun and moon symbolism on their clothes, constellations, and swords: Aether’s has a star (sun) shaped hilt  and Lumine’s a moon. The Traveler is frequently described as being ‘golden’ (ex. Golden Nara), and Liloupar says that they remind her of Deshret.   The Traveler is already a Descender, but they definitely don’t seem to have the strength or knowledge to exercise their world-equivalent Will yet - and maybe their sibling who has been spending time in the Abyss and has learned the “truth of this world” can help. In that case, the knowledge of the Abyss-aligned twin would fulfill the role of the Seelie knowledge in this pair, helping the Traveler complete their power-up. But what about Paimon, the emergency food? She's the dove, representing the spirit and- [is dragged offstage]. 

P.S. I didn’t know where to fit this in, but I think Before Sun and Moon is also referring to a chemical wedding. Sun -> sulfur and gold, Moon -> mercury and silver. The title could be an incomplete phrase, and actually be something like “Before Sun and Moon joined.”

[trashcanlore]

What about "time sinner" 😳

author of the princess fischl books is mister nine. i tried scrambling the letters around and ended up with

i'm te sinner

[trashcanlore]

Your Kabbalah-Genshin Theory is really insightful, I feel like I've learned so much! Something I noticed about it though is that nine of the Ten Sefirot are associated with a biblical hero, and I was wondering if either the Dragons or Archons match the hero of their respective element. I've only gone over one so far, but I think we're off to a really promising start with Zhongli as King David.

King David's famous weapons were a spear, (given to him by Prince Johnathan,) a shield (the "Shield of David" or "Magen David" was so famous that it became the symbol of the Jewish people,) and the sling, (used to throw rocks.) Zhongli wields a spear, the most powerful shield in the game, and throws really big rocks - combat-wise he fits perfectly.

Speaking of the sling, David's main use of the sling was against Goliath, the giant Philistine warrior. The Philistines were sea-faring invaders from Greece, some times referred to as the "sea people." And Zhongli's ancient battles were regularly about throwing giant rocks at the giant sea monsters invading his land. This might be why all the monsters from his stories are usually sea creatures.

And speaking of Prince Johnathan, it's well known that he and David were close friends, possibly even lovers. But Prince Johnathan died in a massive war, as did his father, King Saul. David didn't arrive until he was already dead, and was apologized to by the dying Saul, (who had made an enemy of David,) who made him the next king. Zhongli's close friend (and possibly lover) Guizhong died in the Archon War, and was dead by the time Zhongli arrived. After defeating the last of the gods in the Archon War, Zhongli was granted the title of Archon and given the authority to rule over Liyue.

It's not a perfect 1:1, but a lot of the big picture stuff matches really well. Technically Zhongli is missing some stuff, like being a musician with a lyre (looking at you, Venti,) but if I had to pick a biblical figure to represent Zhongli then young David during his War Hero phase fits startlingly well. And King David is the figure that represents Malkhut, which is the Sefirot that you ascribed to Geo. (Though according to the Jewish Virtual Library, the matriarch Rachel also fits the bill. But she probably fits better for the Shekinah interpretation than the Malkhut interpretation, since the Shekinah is feminine. Malkhut, meanwhile, means "kingdom" and David was famously a king.)

If this theory holds water upon further examination, then we might be able to predict the story of Genshin going forward. Guizhong might be revealed to be the daughter of one of the gods that Zhongli fought against in the Archon war, for example. And if the Tsaritsa is Abraham then her rebellion against the Heavenly Principles would match young Abraham rebelling against polytheism by destroying his father's idols.

(Also, I just glimpsed at some of the others, and Raiden Ei as Moses is really funny. She doesn't fit at first glance, but she did split an island in two, which is an inversion on a pretty famous Moses symbolism. She also killed a snake, which Moses did when his staff-cobra ate the snakes of those two guys. Now it makes sense why she wields a spear despite being famously a katana wielder - cause Moses was a staff guy. I wonder if Eternity being "closest to the Heavenly Principles" has anything to do with the fact that Moses had direct communication with God, and brought down God's Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai. Anyway, it's really funny that the Archon Quest ended by confronting her to, "Let my people's Visions go!" I wonder if the associated biblical figures aren't 1:1 as much as their story beats are borrowed upon for the associated Archons.)

aaaaahhh thank you for this ask (essay) - your reasoning is 👍 and this has really interesting implications indeed

it's also a hilarious coincidence because back when Schwan and I started working on this theory before Sumeru, during the GAA2, we thought we could connect dreams to dendro and yesod (it was the only of the lower 7 sefirot we couldn't pick a element for) through dreams. This was because Joseph had prophetic dreams, and he is the Biblical character associated with yesod. And then lo and behold, dendro was all about dreams, and not only was Nahida's ideal of wisdom involved with this, she also helped the Traveler through dreams while still in baby jail - like how Joseph interpreted dreams for his fellow inmates when he was in jail.

SOooo i got to thinking about the rest of the Archons:

Focalors/Furina corresponds to Isaac (Gevurah/Judgement), whose most famous Bible story involves him being (almost) sacrificed by his father, Abraham. There are several ways to interpret this one. You could look at is Egeria sacrificing her successor and creation, Focalors, by leaving her to deal with the aftermath of her 'sin,' and the prophecy. OR you could view it as Focalors sacrificing Furina, her creation, in her effort to execute her plan. Either way, Focalors is literally sacrificed and Furina is figuratively sacrificed.

I'm not so sure how to align Venti's backstory with Jacob but he does have a fight with an angel and when he wins, God is like "congrats you have proven yourself and here is a new name". Ironic cause as far as we know, Venti didn't directly fight in the Archon War. If I think of anything more interesting than "Jacob is an absentee father", I'll add it later.

And finally, the pyro Archon would be Aaron, the high priest. Based on the probable inspirations for Natlan, it seems highly likely there will be themes of ritualistic sacrifice. So having the Archon act as a kind of priest or overseer of these rituals fits nicely. This also means 2 memey things: -pyro archon polearm real (Aaron also used a staff) -will we find the remains of the Ark (Teyvat) in Natlan?

much to think about! thank you for writing this and sending it! we appreciate you perfectly normal person <3

[trashcanlore]

hey! I wanna ask about the tree of life, specifically.

I wonder if there can be parallels made between the tree of life and astrology and if it would make sense. I keep fixating on Layla's voice-line during the Parade of Providence limited-time event when she said that Ley lines are similar to celestial bodies with fixed orbits, and although the sky is fake, we know Teyvat's foundation is based on Ley Lines. To a lesser degree, but perhaps because this is a stretch, but I've been trying to find any connections between ruling planets of zodiac signs and the ideals of the Seven, or alternatively, just the elements themselves. It's the idea that Genshin makes a lot of parallels between stars and astrology, but less so towards planets that makes me feel suspicion but it might just be me. I give my thanks and appreciation to you as an Ashikai viewer.

Hi!! Welcome ^^

This is a great question! The short answer is that "traditionally," there isn't an association between astrology and Kabbalah - Jewish astrology is a bit different.

I'm not as familiar with Hermetic Qabalah, but that is where these ideas get aggregated. Aleister Crowley's Liber 777 makes links between tarot and Kabbalah, and the major arcana of tarot are also associated with the planetary objects. For example, Crowley assigned the paths between the sefirot to different cards from the major arcana. I've also seen diagrams of the tree with the sefirot labeled with planets+sun and moon but I haven't found a source for those - it might also be from Crowley's collection and mixing of these concepts.

Fun fact, one of the people involved with combining Kabbalah and tarot was Eliphas Levi, who has been eidolon-ified on top of the Tower of Gestalt. Bet he would love that....

About the planets: you should definitely check out the Seven Heavens in Gnosticism, which are created from Chaos (like Ein-Sof) by Yaldaboath and ruled over by the Archons. Each of the heavens is associated with a planetary body. Schwan has a theory that each Genshin region corresponds to a layer of the heavens, so the traveler is basically following the path that the Gnostic soul must take to ascend to the Monad.

I hope this helped answer your questions!

[trashcanlore]

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

[trashcanlore]

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

[trashcanlore]

Kabbalah in the Worldbuilding of Genshin Impact; Part 1: The Tree of Life, the Universe, and Everything

Edited for clarity, 12/6/23

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

During the Sumeru Archon Quests, we learned that the Irminsul is a (real! (ish)) tree that grows upside down, seemingly underground, and that the roots of the tree are the Ley Lines, which extend throughout Teyvat and the Abyss. Irminsul stores all knowledge and memories in the world, and the Ley Lines are the mechanism by which the tree acquires this information. Ley Lines move elemental energy through Teyvat, and this energy acts as both a storage medium for information but also a resource that can be utilized for combat, alchemy, an energy source (Azosite), etc. 

The origin of the name Irminsul (unique to the Western localizations) in combination with the many names from Norse mythology associated with Khaenri'ah, suggest that the inspiration for Irminsul is Yggdrasil, the world tree and central axis of the cosmos in Norse mythology. Here we propose an additional inspiration for Irminsul and the associated worldbuilding and elemental system of Teyvat: The Kabbalistic Tree of Life. In this model, Teyvat’s elemental energy is comparable to the creative energy described by Kabbalah as the foundation for the creation of reality and the spiritual world. Specific attributes of elemental energy can be channeled by unique individuals in Teyvat and these attributes manifest as distinct elements, which can be directly compared to the 10 sefirot, or emanations, described in Kabbalistic literature.

What is Kabbalah?

Kabbalah (lit. received, tradition) is a school of thought originating in Jewish mysticism. In general, Kabbalah focuses on the relationship between the infinite (God) and the finite universe and how it was created. The goal of studying this mysticism can vary depending on the school of thought and their motivations. Many of the esoteric and religious influences on Genshin lore and worldbuilding were influenced by Kabbalah, or vice versa. These include Gnosticism, Hermeticism, alchemy, Freemasonry, the occultist branches of Theosophy and Thelema (Golden Dawn), astrology, symbolic interpretation of the tarot (also specific to the Golden Dawn) and more [2]. In short, Kabbalah is everywhere. Additionally, its concepts are used as symbolism in several pieces of media that directly or indirectly inspired Genshin and other games in the Hoyoverse.

If you have frequented Genshin lore topics, you might have heard that one of the main sources of inspiration for its worldbuilding is Gnosticism. The problem is, Gnosticism is a bit vague or contradictory when it comes to how the world was created and how the whole existence thing works. At this current moment in the storyline of Genshin, we have very little information on the very beginning of existence in Teyvat. This information seems to be a crucial part of the “truth of the world” and appears to be purposefully hidden by powerful factions like Celestia. This entire theory was born out of trying to make sense of what little we know about the creation of Teyvat and comparing it to esoteric commentaries on the well known creation myth of the Torah (Old Testament). The “Biblical world structure” interpretation of Teyvat has been around since the early days of Genshin lore and with good reason; there are frequent mentions of the firmament, as well as the name Teyvat sounding very similar to the Biblical Hebrew word for ‘ark’ (although the grammar is a bit mangled). There are also several references to stories from the Bible in in-game texts, including Before Sun and Moon.  

Kabbalah literature spends a lot of time trying to understand and describe the process of how the world was created and the underlying principles of reality, as well as how spiritual practice can change that reality (either metaphorically or literally). Kabbalah intends to describe the “true nature of God,” which is equal to the entirety of existence, as something very vast and completely impossible to grasp. This incomprehensible infinity emits an “limitless light” that is the origin of all creation. Elemental energy (the ubiquitous source of everything in Teyvat) is often found compared to light, something we’ll discuss in more detail later. The “limitless light” of Kabbalah is way too powerful for existence to bear, much like how elemental energy is to normal, non-Vision having humans. That’s why this light needed to be “filtered” down. This happens through the process of creation, which passes the light through the spiritual attributes that form the Tree of Life, which is like a sort of diagram for how the universe came into being [3].

The Tree of Life

The tree of life and its 10+ nodes, known as sefirot, is one of the most well-known concepts from Kabbalah to make its way into popular culture. As mentioned previously, the tree has been used as rule-of-cool symbolism in anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and Fullmetal Alchemist, two pieces of media that likely are significant influences on Genshin (If you doubt that HYV loves NGE, play some Honkai). The sefirot are also depicted on the floor of the Schicksal HQ map in Honkai Impact 3rd, for some reason.

The sefirot and their organization and interactions with each other can be found depicted in many ways, such as the tree format that is the most popular, or a spiraling nested scheme that is really cool, or even very stylized, like the work of Robert Fludd.

Sefirot

Sefirot comes from the root word in Hebrew meaning “to count,” but you can also find it translated as “sphere” in some texts. The term originated in a book on Jewish mysticism called the Sefer Yetzirah, or “Book of Formation/Creation.” which describes the combination of the “sefirot of nothingness” and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet as the foundation of reality (remember the hypostasis codenames?). 

The Sefer HaBahir (lit. the book of brightness, 13th century France) introduces the idea that the sefirot are emanations of the divine. Interestingly, this book refers to the sefirot as ma’amarot (sayings), which builds on an important concept in classical Jewish philosophy – the idea that God spoke the world into existence. [We’ll get back to the Sefer Yetzirah and the role of language in creating the world in a subsequent part of this theory]. Fontaine 4.2 era edit: HELL YEAH stay tuned for more about Oceanids!!

Historically, Kabbalah might have taken this rough concept from a very different school of thought: Pythagoreans or neo-Platonists. Briefly, the connection between the Pythagoreans and the Kabbalistic sefirot is that both groups considered the world as being made of numbers. This ties back into Genshin worldbuilding because of how much Platonism is related to Gnosticism. Something else to keep in mind is that Pythagoreans (who had a cool history that connected Egypt and Greece to the magic of ✨math✨ but also hey Genshin lore hello Deshret) were known to use lyres as their instrument of choice while making mathematical studies of music. More sus Venti lore for the collection? This is also interesting to consider in the context of Nahida, who is deeply connected to the Irminsul, and has animations that are reminiscent of computers.

Later in the 13th century, the Kabbalist Isaac the Blind would 'canonize' the list of sefirot (there’s still some variation to this day) and organize them into a sequence that would become the basis for the famous Tree of Life structure. His writings described the sefirot as attributes of the divine and their role in the creation of the world. In his model, the sefirot originated from lights that emerged from a primordial soup of potential, and these sefirot/lights would then ‘flow’ and emanate into each other. His student, Azriel of Gerona, expanded on this with a neo-Platonic lens and introduced the concept of the Ein Sof, the infinite nothingness that cannot be comprehended and is the origin of everything. In this model, being flows from an infinite resource of potential, which the divine can utilize through the framework of the sefirot, eventually creating the world [4]. In simple terms, the Ein Sof, which contains everything, emits a primordial light that then differentiates into the sefirot. In our Genshin analogy, this primordial light would be like extremely pure elemental energy that differentiates into elements, like light passing through a prism.

Moses Cordovero, an important figure in the development of Kabbalah, described the process of the sefirot differentiating with the analogy of light shining through a stained glass window: 

Imagine a ray of sunlight shining through a stained-glass window of ten different colors. The sunlight possesses no color at all but appears to change hue as it passes through the window. The light has not essentially changed though it seems so to the viewer. Just so with the sephirot. The light that clothes itself in the vessels of the sephirot is the essence, like the ray of sunlight. That essence does not change color at all, neither judgment nor compassion, neither right nor left. Yet by emanating through the sephirot -- the variegated stained glass -- judgment or compassion prevails. (Pardes Rimmonim by Moses Cordovero, translated in Essential Kabbalah by Daniel Matt)

Cordovero considered the sefirot to be completely independent of each other, but the later Lurianic school of Kabbalah (we’ll get into them more in later parts) considered the sefirot to be constantly dynamically interacting with each other and also assigned them personas. 

Achievement grinders amongst us may recall the descriptions of the namecards you get upon completing the Elemental Specialist achievement series:

Achievement: Colors of the Rainbow: Light can refract into countless colors, but people stop at seven because they're too lazy to count. Perhaps the elements are like that, too. Achievement: Seven Lights: Anyone can play a tune that belongs just to them, and like the dew under grass, can reflect the seven lights of heaven. 

Another example of the elements being compared to light is the Latin text found on the magic circles on the door of Mona’s future house in Mondstadt and generated by the hypostases during their missile attacks. The text reads:

Ex culmine lucis in magno elementorum, which translates to "From the peak of light, to greatness of the elements."

It’s interesting to see this text appearing in association with the hypostases since they are described as “life forms which have completely abandoned their former appearance and biological structure, making them able to reach the highest level of elemental purity. They are ultra-compact structures with a high mass, and are the highest forms of elemental structures.” The hypostasis code names are also all Hebrew letters, as mentioned earlier.

Mona’s astrolabe during the Unreconciled Stars event features a similar text:

Ex culmine locis in magno elementorum; Lux se effundat in mentes dei, which translates to "From the peak of light, to the greatness of the elements; May light pour out, into the minds of god."

The Abyss Lector catalysts contain a text that mirrors these two examples:

Ex culmine lucis in mango obscuritas. Lux se effundat in mentes abysso, or “From the peak of light, to the greatness of darkness. May light pour out into the minds of the abyss.”  

The Genshin elements are also described as flowing. For example, a loading screen tip specifically describes the Ley Lines as “A mysterious network that links the whole world together, within which flow the elements.”  The Silver Twig description states: "All knowledge, memory, and experience flow through this giant tree, just like a stream flows into a river, the river joins a sea, the sea turns into clouds, and the clouds rain onto the ground — just like life itself."

Sefirot and the Genshin Elemental System

The 10 (sometimes 11) sefirot are: 

Keter: Crown (this one is even more symbolic that the rest, is described as “the most hidden of all hidden things" in the Zohar, represent things that are above the mind’s comprehension and the very beginning of the process of turning potential into reality)

Chokhmah: Wisdom

Binah: Understanding/Reasoning

(Da’at: Knowledge, as a fusion of Chokhmah and Binah)

Chesed: Loving Kindness or Mercy

Gevurah: Strength/Severity, (sometimes Din, Judgement, or Pachad, Fear)

Tiferet: Beauty/Harmony, is associated with balance of the Tree of Life

Netzach: Eternity/Endurance

Hod: Splendor/Glory

Yesod: Foundation (as in, foundation of reality)

Malkhut: Kingdom/Sovereignty

You’ve probably noticed by now that while we are claiming that the concept of the sefirot applies to the elemental system in Genshin, there are 10 sefirot and only 7 elements (for now). Fortunately for us, the Kabbalists love metaphors and categories. In addition to the sefirot representing the procedure used to ‘emanate’ and create the world, there are other methods of interpretation that further subdivide and rank the sefirot. For example, one metaphorical interpretation of the Tree of Life assigns each of the sefirot to a part of the human body.

In some Kabbalistic traditions of interpreting the tree, the 10 sefirot are divided into two categories: Intellect (Keter, Binah, Chokhmah) and Emotions (they’re actually more like character traits), which contains the remaining seven. These categories are meant to parallel how the soul is also divided into the intellect and emotional components. The first three sefirot are also referred to as the “three mothers,” because they are the source of the lower seven [5].

Having a group of seven sefirot is very convenient for comparing their traits to the elements and their ideals, but what about the role of the higher three in Genshin worldbuilding? This next section requires a bit more conjecture than some other comparisons here.

The source of all elemental energy in Teyvat, whatever that actually is, could be compared to Keter (crown), the most hidden and incomprehensible of the sefirot. (Big stretch, but think of the crowns over the Irminsul trees in domains.)

Next, we have the Ley Lines, which contain dreams and memories (these are basically the same in Teyvat, see Dream Solvent description), and these can be compared to Binah (understanding/reasoning) and Chokhmah (wisdom). During the Sumeru Archon Quest, Rukkhadevata says that dreams are the source of the wisdom she upheld as her ideal. Memories play an important role in discerning the truth of the world, as the traveler has now found themselves to be the only person to remember certain people/events, and has been told to trust their memories rather than what they can see.

Comparison of the 'Lower' Sefirot to the Genshin Elements and Their Ideals

Chesed (loving-kindness); Cryo (unknown, theorized to be love)

The Cryo Archon’s ideal is theorized to be love, as it’s the only characteristic mentioned in relation to her in the Travail trailer. Wanderer’s voiceline about her directly mentions love and describes her as being kind and benevolent, while Childe describes her as extremely gentle. These are the characteristics of Chesed, which represents the trait of completely selfless love: the all forgiving, all giving love of a god towards their creations. When it comes to the Cryo element itself, two things are worth mentioning: one is the way that all of Snezhnaya is perpetually covered in snow, as if this were the (ironic) physical expression of the Tsaritsa’s love blanketing them. The second is the promise of a world-encompassing snowstorm that will envelop everything as the Fatui advance on their war against Celestia. Although it’s hard to find one absolute constant in Vision granting stories, it’s notable that most Cryo users got their Vision at a moment when they had to selflessly be there for others (Diona, Chongyun, Mika), or after a decisive moment where they put aside their personal comfort for an ideal that would result in benefit for others (Kaeya, Eula, Layla).

Gevurah (Severity); Hydro (Justice)

Gevurah is associated with divine judgment, the kind that punishes humanity and causes world-altering catastrophes like the flood or the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. The Hydro Archon organizing her nation around a Court that attempts to judge both deities and humans parallels this. In a more positive sense, Gevurah is also related to moral judgment that allows one to tell good from evil. Likewise, Hydro in-game is often associated with purity and separation of clean and unclean matter. When it comes to Hydro Vision wielders, one common characteristic is that they all live by a personal ethical code, and their commitment to it is what granted them their Vision.

Tiferet (Beauty/Harmony); Anemo (Freedom)

Tiferet balances the other sefirot on the tree and has direct connections to almost all of them (except for Malkut). Similarly, Anemo can facilitate many elemental reactions via its Swirl reaction. In our opinion, something almost all the Anemo characters share is that their moment of receiving a Vision coincides with a moment of balance and harmony with themselves or their environment. See Jean and Kazuha’s Vision stories and the cutscene where Scaramouche/Wanderer gets his Vision. As an aside, comparing harmony to Anemo is funny because Venti is a bard and harmony is also a musical term: in music theory, harmony is the way we analyze the interactions between different voices that can be heard at the same time.  

Netzach (Eternity); Electro (Eternity)

The quality of “Eternity” in Netzach is related to victory against enemies, referring to eternity as being the most powerful combatant remaining among defeated adversaries. Likewise, in Genshin the story of the Electro Archon features many battles during the Archon War where Ei and Makoto ended up victorious. As for Electro users tend to have their Vision granted at a moment when their ambition “defeated” the obstacles of reality, as was the case with Fischl, Kuki and Lisa. Cyno’s Vision story makes sense when you compare it to the illumination of Buddha during meditation, and how this was victory over the temptation of the demon Mara.

Hod (Glory); Pyro (War)

Natlan and its Pyro Archon are possibly the most mysterious of all the regions, so we can only speculate. We know that the Pyro Archon is called the God of War, and that the Pyro Gemstone mentions battles, pilgrimages and truth. The sefira of Hod, translated as Glory or Splendor, is linked to being able to connect with God and therefore also associated with prophecy (as in the way a human can carry a message from God). In the Travail trailer, the Pyro Archon tells the traveler that “the rules of war are woven in the womb.” It's also theorized Natlan will be based on Mexica culture (where sacrifice of both enemies and self sacrifice was a way to connect with the gods) and via Iansan's name, the Caribbean diaspora version of Yoruba religion (where many rites involve the gods making themselves present in the material world). 

Yesod (Foundation); Dendro (Wisdom)

Back when we started to think about this theory during version 2.8, we decided on Yesod largely via process of elimination. One piece of our rationale was that in the Jewish tradition, each of the lower seven sefirot are used to represent a primary personality trait of seven archetypal figures in the Torah. The person related to Yesod is Joseph, who is well known for his prophetic dreams, and because of the events of the Golden Apple Archipelago, we decided that was close enough. However, the 3.x version confirmed that a) Irminsul did actually exist, b) Dendro as an element has a deep relationship with the tree, with the Dendro Archon acting as its avatar, c) the ideal of wisdom as both Dendro Archons interpreted it has a lot to do with dreams, and d) Irminsul and the Ley Lines act as the foundation for how reality is perceived in Teyvat. Yesod is also associated with biological life, as it represents the reproductive organs in the human body scheme of the sefirot.

Malkut (Kingship); Geo (Contracts)

Malkut is associated with the connection between the spiritual "above" of the Tree of Life and the concepts it contains, and the "below" of the material world, where these concepts manifest into material reality. For this reason, Malkut is associated with the earth [6]. In many Geo item descriptions, like the Geo Hypostasis drop or Albedo's elemental skill, the motif of geo trying to reach the sky is a constant. From a religious POV, the relationship between the divine and humans living in the material world has also been one of "covenants," or "pacts", in a similar way to how the Geo Archon is the God of Contracts. Furthermore, contracts are the basis to have a working state (government), and a kingdom is one of the first forms of a state. Malkut also being related to earth and everything material parallels how Geo is an element that works in making constructs. Geo Vision users are likewise involved in making or maintaining structures, like the Knights of Favonius is for Noelle, or the tradition of alchemy is to Albedo, as well as opera to Yunjin and in a way, even the Oni identity for Itto.

The Origin of Evil and Why Irminsul is Upside Down

Tighnari tells us that Irminsul is a tree that “grows downward rather than upwards,” or in other words, it’s upside down. This isn’t the only time that we’ve encountered things in Teyvat being described as upside-down or mirrored, and as it turns out, there is a similar scenario described in Kabbalah. Throughout Kabbalistic discussions on the origin of evil in the world (both material and spiritual), a central idea developed is the existence of a mirrored or inverse Tree of Life that forms the demonic realm of evil. The Zohar, a foundational work of Kabbalistic literature, spends a considerable time discussing the origins of evil - there are more than 5 creation myths for the concept of evil! Two of these myths describe the formation of an inverse Tree of Life, called the Sitra Achra (literally “other side”). This tree is constructed out of corrupted fragments of divinity that did not make it through the creation process, and therefore became evil forces [7]. Evil is typically represented as either a shard (like of broken pottery) or as a husk/shell (Qlippoth in Hebrew). Sound familiar? We actually have an enemy with this name in-game; the "shadowy husks" (the CN name for these enemies literally translates to "empty shell"). 

Unlike the very well defined 10 sefirot of the Tree of Life, Kabbalists don't agree about the identities or number of the demons that form the Sitra Achra. Some names for these demons are consistent; such as  Lilith, Samael, and Asmodeus, who make a sort of "mother, father, son" trio. As for the rest, scholars generally agree that Kabbalists blended traditions from nearby cultures depending on where they lived, leading to Arabic, Spanish and Germanic legends mixing into the Jewish tradition [8]. There's a strong possibility Hoyoverse did something similar and filled in the missing names with the names of the demons of the Ars Goetia, creating a system where the mirrored sefirot are “ruled” by demon gods, aka, the Archons. This implies that the reason Teyvat is upside down is because it is actually on the “other side.”

Neuvillette, About Us: Witness: Since you hail from beyond the stars, I invite you to be my witness as I judge this upended world…”Though we live in a world of disarray, I shall undertake to restore all that has been broken”. 

[Fun Fact: The Zohar describes the construction of the Sitra Achra as a series of knots that arrange the demonic equivalent of sefirot, called either crowns or “breaths,” into a mirrored Tree of Life configuration [7]. ]

The primary goal of the Sitra Achra is to steal and absorb the divine energy of the Tree of Life to maintain its existence, in the hopes of gaining enough energy to destabilize the system [9]. The way Genshin's Archons use their Gnoses is similar to this system. In the Flower of Paradise Lost artifact lore, the Goddess of Flowers explains to Deshret and Rukkhadevata that when the Seelie race was disgraced, they lost their connection to Heaven and their power of "enlightenment". Later, Celestia would facilitate the Archon War with the promise that each winning god would be granted a Gnosis that would give them exceptional power. Both Nahida and Venti have described the Gnoses as being a very advanced tool that concentrates elemental energy. So far, Archons have had inherent elemental powers related to their nature, but when it comes to using large amounts of elemental energy through their Gnoses, they aren't creators but channelers of it, just at a much larger scale than humans who have Visions. Edit: and yes, there is the most recent revelation about the origin of the Gnoses that is extremely relevant to this comparison, but deserves its own space to be properly expanded on.

However, this doesn't mean Teyvat is condemned. Just as the Traveler has slowly been setting the chaos of elemental energy back into order (by, for example, returning the elemental Oculi to the Statue of the Seven, among many other things), so too is there a concept in Kabbalah describing the importance of righting the wrongs of the universe so that the sefirot are stable and creation is in harmony with the divine. This is called Tikkun Olam, or the repairing of the world.

Stay tuned for part 2 where we go into wayyyyy more detail about what this means for the Traveler's journey through Teyvat! 4.2 Edit: and of course will we will be talking about the most recent Gnosis revelation, as well as the Narzissenkreuz Ordo antics :D

References:

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/170308/jewish/What-is-Kabbalah.htm

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

Kabbalah - Origins of the Sefirot and Tree of Life - Isaac the Blind Saggi Nehor & Azriel of Gerona

Mystical Concepts in Chassidism - Schochct, Jacob Immanuel, chapter 2

  Mystical Concepts in Chassidism - Schochct, Jacob Immanuel pg 66-67, Tanya ch. 3

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, Likutey Moharan I, 12:1 via Wikipedia

The Origins of the Klippot / Qliphoth & Sitra Achra in the Zohar - Kabbalah on the Problem of Evil

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/demons-and-demonology

9. Evil in Early Kabbalah - Emanations of the Left Hand Side - Origins of the Qliphoth / Klippot