[2.3] A Tale of Three Albedos - A Genshin Impact Event Analysis and Theory

this video is sponsored by nordvpn this event gave everyone trust issues i think but for all the suspicious activity and potential hinting of whopper flower body snatchers i don't think we actually have anything to worry about yet i get the feeling that this event was more of a teaser or a preview of what's to come in the future and that for now at least nothing of consequences change within the grand scheme of things and yeah i'm including joel's dad in that but if youtube and twitter polls are anything to go by the vast majority of you do not agree with me at all so in this video allow me to play devil's advocate and entertain the possibility that everything is fine quick reminder that this video consists entirely of my own thoughts and interpretations this does not mean that my take on things is at all correct if you have a different opinion that is totally fine and i am in no way trying to prove anyone else wrong i am only aiming to share my own personal opinion and my experience so do with this information what you will as always corrections and additional notes will be pinned in the comment below i do so love a healthy discussion so without further delay let's begin our ascent up dragon spine the event begins with paimon deciding that she wants fruit juice that will never go bad which okay paimon random much this is our first encounter with sus beto as i will now call him although we don't exactly interact with him at this point still paimon is able to sense that something seems pretty off with him but she interprets it as something like a bad mood while the traveler seems to sense something a little different but doesn't voice their thoughts at all so sucrose and timaeus tell us to follow him to dragonspine because they can't make paimon's forever juice so that's what we decide to do for all the flak the traveler gives paim on they sure go out of their way to prioritize her needs just saying anyway at base camp we meet amber eula cyrus and reckless palad who are about to head off to a winter training camp i guess for the adventurers guild which we never actually see which annoys me but i'll ignore it we also meet joel again and if you don't remember joel that's okay 1.2 was a long time ago but basically joel is an npc who's been waiting at the base of the mountain for his dad to come home for like a year now his story is in the world quest lost in the snow where you try unsuccessfully to track down father dearest then return to the child to imply that he is dead joel is still waiting for him though poor kid so anyway uh up the mountain we go finally and we quickly run into albedo the real one this time note that the traveler and paimon noticed that this albedo doesn't seem to be off in the same way that the one in monstat was turns out albedo's alchemy notes have been stolen so we head off to get the notes back tracking down the thief into a cave that goes literally nowhere so albedo where did you go when you went in there alone and where did sus beto come from i'm still confused it's just a dead end it's just a hole in the mountain there's no anyway we go to rescue bennett while suspect decides to go poof and so we go looking for him and then find the real albedo again but then eula shows up and claims that alberto eated joel off a cliff but uh in any case the child eater here is actually not albedo or suspeto but a whopper flower that's been morphed to look like albedo and we'll call this one whopper beto so that's three albedos got it suspedo who's grumpy with no star mark on his neck albedo who's pretty chill and has a star mark on his neck and whopper beto who also has no star mark but has no other discerning features other than he's kind of nutty and has cryo powers later but okay so that's act one in a nutshell act two we finally reunite with amber and eula and bennett and then we get split up during an avalanche where bennett falls off a cliff and albedo goes missing we do not find albedo but instead we do find whopper bedo traveler then wonders if the avalanche was really an accident spoilers it wasn't and after a short walk down the mountain eula pulls a traveler aside to voice her suspicions about whopper beto implying that the traveler was already aware that this is not actually albedo which checks out because all of a sudden waporbato attacks with some really spicy ice magic rondo thing which lasts for all of like 10 seconds before the real albedo goes shrunk and stabs him right in the back forcing it back into its original flower form where we fight it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again now this next bit gets glossed over a little bit i feel as albedo is explaining what happened everyone then turns to the traveler to ask them how they knew the imposter wasn't the real albedo and the traveler says the imposter didn't have a star-shaped mark on its neck but that's not what happened up until this point the traveler has been confused about what was actually different between the two or even three i guess at this point now albedos but never brings up the star mark in their own thoughts which i feel like is kind of important to me this suggests that the traveler had something else that bothered them about the imposters this was supported by the fact that eula also did not notice the star mark either but still felt like something was off although she could not put it into words also worth noting that albedo does not tell the traveler about the third imposter here but the traveler still suspects that the whopper flower was either not the only imposter or that you know something's not quite right they even say it didn't feel quite the same which further supports the idea that the traveler has some other sense beyond just noticing a star mark and the star mark explanation was really just for simplicity so they didn't have to explain themselves which is a thing that the traveler does a lot so we part ways with everyone else and follow albedo back to his workshop where he tells us the origin of his birthmark and a bit about glassblowing and more on glassblowing in another video because that's a huge topic that i want to explore in depth but anyway albedo claims his birthmark is the sign of his humanity that he was flawed and that therefore makes him human and we'll come back to this idea now the scene that follows is exceptionally vague and i've seen several interpretations of it one interpretation is that albedo is simply reminiscing here that he's thinking about the moment just before he goes off to stab whopper beto and that sus beto is still out there somewhere doing whatever it is that he does another interpretation is that he's going off to duel suspeto and that there's no actual flashback here at all i could honestly argue either case and i don't think either interpretation actually changes the overall outcome for me in the end but speaking of changing the outcome when surrounded by things that want to impersonate 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and right now you can sign up for a two-year subscription plus a bonus month and get 73 off using the link nordvpn.com ashikai this deal however is limited time only so take advantage of it while you can there's a link in the description box if you're interested but in the meantime let's get back to the video okay so in the final act a few weird things happen first paimon and albedo exchange stories and pymons is about a whopper flower that turns into humans and then eats them while also then like replacing them in society like some weird creepy alien movie horror story thing while albedo tells a story about his own history like his origin story now subject one in this story is the real albedo while subject two is sus beto which messes with my head because subject two was technically created before subject one but anyway uh rhein daughter the alchemist in this story apparently discarded suspeto by feeding him to durin the big scary dragon that you can kind of like walk through his rib cage of so that's a thing anywho suspeto didn't get fully digested inside of during so after durran died suspect must have absorbed some of duron's bizarre power until he was finally able to take a proper human form again and he chose albedo's form since he wanted albedo's life kind of like reclaiming his birthright i guess but suspeto isn't durin and durin is still dead ish and either way suspeto is the one that stole albedo's notes and had apparently been doing so for a considerable period of time long enough to learn how to warp a whopper flower into a human anyway which seems like some pretty advanced alchemy but unlike albedo suspeto wants to be perfect and since the star mark on albedo's neck is considered a flaw sus beto erased it on his own body but again albedo goes out of his way to emphasize that human beings are defined by their flaws we'll come back to this idea albedo then tells us that sus beto would wait until albedo had been alone to you know kill him and then replace him and no one would ever know except that the traveler showed up and could somehow tell them apart and with the traveler there that plan would not work and here albedo gives us an analogy he says three roses in a garden two defective with hidden poison and one knot only the gardener of these roses could tell them apart and therefore determine what each one was worth a lot of people have likened the gardener to the traveler but i think in the case of the story the gardener was both ryan daughter and the traveler since both could technically determine the worth of each albedo rose thing at different points in time now i'm convinced that the one telling the traveler this story at this point is the real albedo this is because he's quite chill and he's deeply philosophical when he speaks of his past suspeto was grumpy or angrier and really bitter about being discarded and it's not at all likely that he'd be able to talk like this so convincingly in such a short span of time that's my opinion besides albedo emphasizes that had sus beto succeeded in replacing him he would have felt great joy at having finally been brought into the world and yet albedo here expresses that when killing one of his imposters he felt grief on surface level we can at least assume he's referring to when he killed the whopper beto but if he did duel suspeto then it's possible that he's talking about him too but i don't think suspeto has the capacity to understand grief in that context if he can't even understand or grasp the concept of humans being flawed creatures by definition and therefore it would be impossible to be perfect nor do i think that suspeto would ever venture to wonder about the philosophy of creation and whether or not the act itself is considered arrogant i i just don't think he cares his goal has nothing to do with creation and he wants to steal albedo's life not create one of his own food for thought now back down at the base of the mountain we meet joseph joseph joseph joel's dad so many people think that this guy is either whopper beto in a new form or suspeto remade and reshaped into joel's dad's shape by albedo after the last act and i i think this is actually joel's dad like the real one and two big reasons for this one is that this guy was never actually proclaimed dead when we last saw signs of him he was about to try and climb or scale down a small cliff and land in a pile of snow that would cushion his fall both bennett and albedo fell off a cliff like this in act two so this guy's survival actually does seem plausible he also says he woke up covered in blood without his memories and you know head injuries bleed a ton so likely this guy did hit his head head trauma can also explain some memory loss because that's actually how traumatic head injuries work according to the msktc people with this type of injury have trouble remembering to remember things so the fact that he doesn't remember things until he sees joel is also actually believable also just before his attempts to scale down the cliff joel's dad was somewhat trapped in a cave with two foxes for company he wrote very fondly of them in his notes and if you talk to him after the event he'll tell you that he's promised to build a fox-shaped snowman with his son and for some reason the thought of the foxes makes him feel really warm inside if for whatever reason this guy was an imposter this would imply that albedo or sus beto has some ability to manipulate memories to the point where they can not only wipe them selectively from someone's brain but also then select memories from the ley lines or a dead person's head and insert them back into the new brain i don't buy this i don't like it i don't think mihoya will go that route plus albedo did mention that things stay preserved longer on dragon's spine and that duran's blood has curious properties that can bring about vast and terrifying miracles it's possible then that this guy joel's dad i guess fell into a vein of durian's blood and absorbed some of it over time and that somehow kept him alive i mean if it can keep suspeto alive inside of a stomach while partially digested for 500 years it can keep joel's dad alive for a few months i reckon but seriously though imagine if he really was an imposter i would feel awful for the wife okay just like really terrible anyway uh okay now we're back to monsta and this is where things get dicey and this is where we all developed some trust issues after all this time paimon still wants her eternally fresh fruit juice but this time we get the option to talk to albano about it or is it suspeto because the traveler while not being able to sense or feel anything wrong this time like he has all of the other times he does notice that the star mark is not on albedo's neck but only for just a brief moment because there's nothing wrong with how this albedo feels the traveler is kind of confused and therefore wonders if it's a prank i'm of the opinion that this is in fact a test prank thing see remember how earlier bennett and co asked the traveler how they knew albedo wasn't the real one and the traveler pointed out that the mark was missing but there's no evidence actually to suggest that that's what the traveler sensed initially i think that the real albedo had a hunch about this and wanted to prove a hypothesis by erasing his own mark to see our reaction he's testing the traveler to see if they can sense albedo's authenticity regardless of his appearance and they can so anyway albedo goes about trying to solve paimon's problem of expired fruit juice and gives the traveler a very smug look so many people are taking this to mean that this is sus beto but honestly i don't agree he gets a lot of flack for being kind of emotionless but albedo is actually very playful and a very big tease we got a good taste of that in the golden apple archipelago series it's even the same smug look on his face and the traveler responds with the same smug expression back another bit of evidence many are using to support this assumption that this is sus beto is that he suggests paimon can live on dragon spine if she wants fresh fruit all year round or that the traveler can return to dragon spine alone to fetch the fruit albedo may consider dragon spine dangerous yes but he's still happy to have visitors he just wants them to be cautious when they do visit you know albedo then says that if you bury the sunsettias they may actually sprout into trees which wouldn't make paimon a gardener like her line suggests but instead albedo because he would be the one actually tending to these trees right so consider the possibility that albedo is suggesting that he would like to take the place of a gardener instead of a rose instead of being the one crafted he would be the one crafting this perfectly ties in with his earlier musings about whether or not creation was an arrogant act his conclusion is no it's not in fact albedo may attempt to carry on his master's research into the primordial human project by creating more of himself confident that should he lose control of his research the traveler would be able to assist by telling all of the potential albedos apart but the traveler kind of interprets this as a joke and in a way it kind of is the traveler had assumed albedo was sensitive about the nature and meaning behind a scar in his neck because you know maybe not being a real human makes him feel like he doesn't really fit in but that's not entirely accurate rather than sensitive i think albedo was merely self-conscious of it was he truly human or was he an other in the end i think albedo realizes that he possesses more flaws than just the scar on his neck it's those flaws that make him human and despite the fact that you can't see them people still know that they're there even if they can't tell you what they are he's gained a bit of confidence in his humanity this is further evidenced by his next line where he talks about fulfillment he suggests that when you have something in excess you don't develop an extreme attachment to it it's only when something is rare that it becomes something you want to guard almost possessively or obsessively even sus beto does not have this type of insight it's not something he understands because he hasn't been exposed to the concept of human nature as something that is defined by its flaws which is really the theme of this whole event besides the less fun answer is mihoyo isn't going to kill off an important character and replace them with a lookalike in a temporary event in temporary events they tend to give us teasers or previews for future plot points rather than have them change the plot itself for example shikitai show's event child mentions that he's hunting for scaramouche but that doesn't actually change anything in the game because we already know why he's chasing scaramouche but now we just know that it's child who's going after it that information doesn't change the actual story you know it's the same with unreconciled stars nothing actually changed in that event and the same with the first dragon spine event nothing actually changed there either i totally believe that albedo and his many brothers will come up as major plot points in the future and i don't think that suspeto has been completely neutralized but i also don't think he's replaced albedo either he'll come up in a story or arkhan quest in like six months to a year and people who have played this event will freak out because it'll be such a satisfying payoff to see this event finally come to fruition but the people who didn't play the event won't have missed anything too important and that's really key okay i also think that joel's dad is going to go back to mountaineering and disappear from the map which would put joel right back where we started nice and tidy give it a few more days and we'll see if i'm right about that little bit that much we'll at least be able to confirm anywho that is all my thoughts about the current event itself but i have a great deal more thoughts about ryan daughter and the primordial human project so stay tuned for that video because it's coming up real fast i actually wrote the script for that one before this one also a big thanks to nordvpn for sponsoring this video and thank you all for watching until the very end leave your thoughts and interpretations in the comment box below and keep your eyes peeled for the breakdown of rhyme daughter and the primordial human project coming soon [Music] you

Channel: Ashikai

Views: 84,280

Keywords: game theory, genshin impact theory, genshin impact, mihoyo, theory video, game lore, genshin lore, shadows amidst snowstorms, dragonspine, albedo

Id: NvX25kFdE8Q

Length: 22min 15sec (1335 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 11 2021