Bonjour, friendlies, and welcome to Fontaine our newest edition to Teyvat and wow, what an update. Now, I don't really like to recap quests that are voiced because I think most people prefer to just rewatch the quest and I think that recapping the events of the world quest is a little pointless because what happens in them is usually a lot easier to remember
than all of the little lore details and backstories that are packed into them that no one really reads or retains. So, for that reason, the recaps of the quests in this video will be particularly brief and sparse as I will mostly be focusing on all the stuff that we learned from these quests instead. Now, if that is not your cup of tea
and you're here for actual recaps this probably is not the video for you. Now, what this video will contain
is brief highlights, observations and analyses of Acts 1 and 2 of the Archon quest as well as a Narzissenkruez Institute quest and the Melusine world quest. My apologies for my pronunciation, I'm doing my best but it probably won't get better. Now, I will be timestamping each section however, I cannot guarantee content
from each of these three quests won't bleed into each other because they are all actually, shockingly connected. This is the only spoiler warning in the entire video which means I should also tell you that I will be mentioning a couple of small things from Lyney's story quest as well but we won't really be doing a recap of it. It's just, like, a couple of minor things. But we will be going over a bunch
of mini-miscellaneous theories as well at the very end of this video, as per usual. So, no leaving early or you're gonna miss 'em. Also, this video is by no means comprehensive. Even though it's an hour long, there is just that much to cover in this new region, and there's stuff I'm not gonna get to. Just assume if I've missed anything it's probably gonna show up in a future video, okay? That was a lot of disclaimers, but let's not waste anymore time and just dive right into it. Before everything else, we have
to establish this whole prophecy business because it's the real driving force between the whole Fontaine arc, I think. So, it's important that you just know
the contents of it pretty well. Essentially, every person in Fontaine is born with sin that cannot be absolved through trials. One day, the water levels will rise and all of the sinful people in Fontaine will be dissolved into the waters, with only the Hydro Archon remaining behind crying tears upon her throne. Now, you may recall at the very beginning of this trailer we can actually hear a voice saying: ''The first sin is the fairest, everyone sinks...'' which is obviously referencing this prophecy. The owner of this voice is named Egeria and she seems to be the former Hydro Archon. I kind of think this is a Rukkhadevata situation where she's not really gonna be a
character, but we will hear her talk. If we break this prophecy down a bit,
we can highlight the words sin, rising water levels, dissolving of people,
and the Hydro Archon's tears. I don't really know what the sin is referring to and I don't think we have enough information to guess at it but it does seem to be the reason
why only the people of Fontaine dissolve in Primordial Waters,
so this sin at least is unique to Fontaine and not Teyvat in general. And the dissolving in water thing was been a problem for Fontaine people since the very ancient times of Remuria. Now, Remuria is a civilization that was around during the time of, like, Deshret and the Guili Assembly and, you know, that kind of thing. So, like a really long time ago; way, way, way pre-Cataclysm. That's technically pre-Archon War too. The rising water levels is another ongoing problem. Rene's investigation notes
actually mentions that Fontaine has flooded at least twice prior to 400 years ago and I'm not even sure if that
counts the flood that ended Remuria. There's also a lot of recent evidence
of increasing water levels —like, seriously increasing water levels— since Lynette talks about this hill that she and Lyney used to play on as kids as having been completely submerged. And that must have been, like,
within the last 15 years-ish at most and that's a lot of water over a very short period of time. As for the Archon's tears well, let's come back to that in another section of the video. For now, we've got some trials to get through. Let's start with the very first one: Lyney being accused of the murder of one of his assistants. This whole fiasco started when Lyney spotted a pickpocket and ran off to catch 'em. Now, presumably, this thief
named Liliane outran a master magician and Fatui Harbinger in training, because she distracted him by dropping the stuff she stole? I find this incredibly difficult
to believe and I am not the only one. CatWithBlueHat made
a very interesting theory video on this topic suggesting that Lyney's entire court case was pre-planned and fabricated and that Liliane was a Fatui operative. This is a really convincing video
and definitely worth the watch. However, I'm not actually convinced that this is what happens because the circumstances
only seem suspicious on the surface. Admittedly, most of my reasoning
comes from Lyney's story quest and the insight it gave into his nature. See, when he and Lynette were kids,
they had a famous magician as a mentor for a very short period of time,
and he was incredibly important to them. Now, this guy ended up being lied to
by the people who were closest to him who then manipulated him
with those lies and eventually killed him. Even though Lyney and Lynette had only known this guy for a couple of weeks, it still haunted them for 10 years to the point where they lured these people out of hiding just to get their revenge. So, Lyney has this
negative relationship with lies of this nature. He does seem ok with harmless lies like ''oh, I twisted my ankle but not badly enough to stumble'' or ''oh, I didn't catch the thief but Lynette did.'' I went through the quest a few times and when you're really paying attention to it it becomes very obvious
just how much Lyney avoids lying whenever he can. Like when we asked him what Freminet whispered to him it was obviously confidential information but Lyney just told us it was about housework. And it was about house work; work for the House of the Hearth. He plays games with words, misdirects our attention and omits details that may compromise his missions for sure but he tries so hard not to lie. It's like how he didn't tell us he was a Fatui but we also never asked, so he just didn't bring it up. And while I do think it's possible that Liliane is a Fatui operative, I think that it's unlikely at this point and I definitely don't think she's from the House of the Hearth. Personally, I do think that Lyney caught Liliane but I also think that he saw a bit of himself and Lynette in her circumstances of being a thief on the street and decided to invite her to the show himself; maybe to show her how to use her talent for something else. Everything else that followed
after this was just a coincidence, I think. The pieces of the murder mystery just line up too well and Lyney seems actually, genuinely regretful about the whole situation, so I really don't think he'd lie about something of that magnitude especially when it's so closely connected
to what happened to his mentor. Cowell really is the villain here. I think that Cowell noticed Lyney making reservations for the Traveler and Paimon and also Liliane who was then going by the name
of a famous Fontaine artist, Halsey. If Cowell wanted to spook or target someone close to Lyney then the best option was to pick someone that Lyney made reservations for himself. Obviously, the Traveler and Paimon are... Traveler and Paimon, so they are not from Fontaine but the Fontaine artist Halsey was a pretty safe bet. How was he supposed to know
that it wasn't really Halsey in that seat? It's not like he can do a background check. The internet doesn't exist in Teyvat, the Akasha shut down. So, Cowell did rig the number generator and he did wait in the tunnel for Liliane. Lyney then entered the tunnel first to go check out the core of the Oratrice —and we'll come back to this a little bit later— and when he was down there, Lilian was lowered into the tunnel. Primordial Waters were then dumped
over her but rendered ineffective since she was actually from Mondstadt and not Fontaine. And then Cowell got spooked, because this plan didn't work and they got into a small scuffle
which had Liliane knocking Cowell out then changing her clothes, stuffing him into a box and then hiding in a chest, because she was spooked. Then the box goes back on stage, the fireworks go off and the rope for the water tank
that had been sabotaged snapped and Cowell was crushed under its weight, inside the box. Now, unless Liliane knew Cowell's plan ahead of time she didn't knowingly kill him. And I don't actually know if, when put on trial, the Oratrice would actually mark her as guilty since it's really his own fault that he died unless he was dead before he got crushed or unless the Oratrice can't actually determine the truth. We'll come back to this. The biggest thing we learned from this trial is that there is a group of individuals who are intentionally dumping Primordial Waters on young Fontaine women
and really causing them to dissolve into water. And frankly, I'm not sure Lyney
and Lynette knew about this ahead of time or else I think things would've
panned out a little bit differently. Or that, you know, Lyney would just come forward earlier. On a more meta, higher level, the purpose of this trial was actually just to demonstrate how justice in Fontaine is supposed to be carried out. This is just a set-up, so I'm just gonna Occam's razor this one because this trial is supposed to be the baseline for all other trials to be compared against, okay? Speaking of which, the trial in Act 2 is far less complicated but has a lot more implications, as for the lore. Basically, the whole thing
is just us running around, looking for new leads about the truth behind the death of Navia's father and why all these women were disappearing and also why Childe is the one being accused of the crime 'cause he doesn't seem like the prime suspect. They never explicitly explain this (that I'm aware of) but if you think back to before we went to Lyney's magic show Childe did beat up a bunch of cronies from the Confrerie of Cabriere back in Act 1 and the owner of the Confrerie is Marcel, a.k.a Vacher the man responsible for the trafficking of the drug Sinthe —which is short for absinthe, I think— and responsible for dissolving all of those women. It's, again, an Occam's razor moment for me. Vacher is the big boss, they tried to pin the crime on some guy that did wrong by the whole organization and it went horribly wrong and then the real murderer was proven guilty, alright? That's the baseline. That's what happened. Fun fact though, the names Vacher and Marcel both refer to two French serial killers: Joseph Vacher and Marcel Henri Barbeault. Vacher was known as the French Ripper a reference to London's Jack the Ripper which I think is kind of cool and very appropriate for this cool questline. Anyway, what we learned from this trial is that Vacher used to be an adventurer and during an underwater expedition,
he and his girlfriend Vigneire stumbled upon a spring of Primordial Waters and when she touched it, her body dissolved into water. Vacher kind of lost it after this,
because he isn't a Fontaine native and therefore can't dissolve in order to follow her in death so he decided to just, like... go around dissolving other young girls, experimentally in order to figure out how to undissolve Vigneire which feels super weird to me,
because he didn't even know where she was so how would he undissolve her, even if he did have a method? I don't understand. Unless he was trying to find a way to dissolve himself in which case, why are you
still dissolving only Fontaine people? You know they already dissolve. I don't understand this guy's logic, like at all. In any case, all waters in Fontaine
converge at the Fountain of Lucine a feature that predates the Opera House. So, when Vigneire and all other
subsequent victims dissolved they ended up at the fountain, eventually merging together to form an Oceanid. Now, Lynette tells us something
kind of interesting early in Act 1. She says that our tears carry our strongest emotions and tears being water fall under
the jurisdiction of the Hydro Archon. Interestingly enough, the very first Oceanid ever to exist was said to have been born of the first Hydro Archon's tears. So, she must have been birthed
from a very powerful emotion indeed. And yes, we'll come back to this. And yes, I do want to acknowledge
that it's said, therefore it's just a legend and that there is some dispute over its veracity and whether or not Oceanids
existed, like, way before then, but I digress. I think the patters is still interesting. So, Vacher gets drowned by Vigneire and that's the end of that except that I skipped over the part where we had to go get a verdict on Childe's case. Of course, this should've been very straightforward and just a formality, since we know what he's innocent. We literally just caught the real killer but the Oratrice judge Childe as guilty anyway. Now, I don't think the Oratrice is rigged, okay? I don't think that's what's going on here.
I don't think that's the plot. I am, however, convinced that his so called guilt is related to that ''it'' that he unlocked. The "it" that his master Skirk recognized in him back when he was 14 and fell into the Abyss. And this "it" is probably what's
screwing up his control over his Vision. Although I have an alternative theory on this but I need more time to cook before we talk about it. I think, however, what the Oratrice does isn't so much as judging guilt, but recognizing sin. If you look back at the prophecy sin recognition makes more sense than judging guilt. Whatever is inside Childe is related to the Abyss and the Abyss would certainly be considered a sinful power in the eyes of a god-machine like the Oratrice especially if it's sentient in the way Lyney suspects it is. And I'm pretty sure I can make a case to support this argument but this requires knowledge
of events from 400 years ago in Fontaine. Specifically, the events revolving around the Narzissenkreuz Institute. Again, sorry for the pronunciation!
I'm gonna mispronounce it a lot. As far as the events of the quest go it's actually pretty simple: we met a very tiny Oceanid named Ann who asked us to help her and her Hydro Mimic friends save the princess Lyris, who is trapped inside of a big tower. Very basic, very straightforward, right? The underwater location is actually a place called the Narzissenkreuz Institute which was a type of orphanage
for gifted children 500 years ago and all of the characters in this quest were kids here except for Lyris, who was most likely the orphanage director and also an Oceanid herself. And this is why Ann and the Mimics
say that they have "princess Lyris' time" as they are fragments made by Lyris. We'll get to the details of this later, I promise. Basically Ann, who's full name is Mary-Ann died in an accident and was reborn
with Lyris' powers as a tiny Oceanid. In the process, she lost a lot of her memories and kind of regressed back to her childhood. If you've read the Nymph’s Dream Artifact Set (which I do not expect you to have done) it talks about how all of these kids at the orphanage used to play make-believe stories
about heroes slaying dragons and this entire quest is basically Ann playacting these fragmented memories of hers over, and over, and over again believing them to be real. And that's why at the end, the human-shaped Mary-Ann laments the fact that Ann couldn't have
just remained ignorant in a dream. She wanted to go back to
simpler times, before things went wrong when she and her friends
were just kids playing pretend heroes. But let's pause here, because as simple as this premise sounds these kids are critical
to Fontaine's current circumstances as many of them are very, very famous historical figures. For Fontaine, anyway. And these same kids are connected to the Melusines. So, yeah, understanding who they are
and what they did is kind of important. So, now for the history lesson. About 500 years ago, a little bit
before the Khaenri'ah Cataclysm Fontaine had a lot of trouble
maintaining order in its undercity Fleuve Cendre where the less fortunate citizens of Fontaine congregated. This place was basically lawless and full of gang violence and all other kinds of similar shenanigans up until a man named Eduardo Baker seized control of it. And frankly, Eduardo's backstory reads like he's some kind of young mob boss, of all things. Now, that obviously didn't sit that well with a land so obsessed with their justice system so law enforcement eventually
raided Fleuve Cendre and arrested him. Eduardo was sentenced to exile in the Girdle of Sands but he managed to escape and then took a bunch of the Maison Gardiennage officers hostage with him into the town of Poisson, who then granted him asylum. Negotiations between the Court of Fontaine and Eduardo's group in Poisson carried on for quite a while until the Marechaussee Phantoms laid siege to Poisson and set the town ablaze. A lot of people died. Eduardo also died in this conflict and his son Jakob was taken
into the Narzissenkreuz Institute alongside the now deceased mayor of Poisson’s son, Rene. There they befriended Alain and Mary-Anne. Now, in the quest, Ann is Mary-Anne Al is Alain, Jack is Jakob Ney is Rene, and Colonel Kate
is Carter, who we’ll talk about later. Now, I think Petit Chou is supposed to be Mary-Ann but Ann, as an Oceanid, probably isn't sure how to reconcile watching
herself from an outside perspective so she doesn't really have a name,
and is just called "little cabbage." So, these kids spent several years together under the care of director Lyris the Oceanid and the vice-director Basil Elton, who was a military veteran and former attendee of this orphanage and she's also based off of Basil Elton, a lighthouse keeper from an H.P. Lovecraft novel called "The White Ship." Now, I kind of think it's weird
that an Oceanid and a military veteran were chosen to raise a bunch of kids but seeing how these kids all mostly turned out to be the world changing prodigies that they were I kinda gotta wonder if this was,
like, a really special orphanage or if it was all just coincidence.
It could be either. I don't know. Now, everything was fine again until the Cataclysm struck. Lyris then had to go with her Oceanid sisters to help her Hydro Archon push back the Abyss that was flowing out from the Girdle of Sands so she left the children in the care of two trusted adults who had grown up at the orphanage: Rene and Jakob went with the former journalist Karl Ingold while Mary-Ann and Alain went with the Marechaussee Phantom, Emmanuel Guillotin. I think this was supposed to be temporary because vice-director Basil
set out to fight the dragon Elynas ─a creation of Rhinedottir's, kind of like Durin─ and the kids seemed to believe
that she'd return for them eventually. And she never did, because she didn't make it out alive although Elynas was eventually subdued. The Hydro Archon Egeria met her end in Sumeru leaving behind a prophecy
for Furina, who would take her place. Lyris seems to have lost all of her strength and presumably regressed back into a small, childish form. Kind of like Ann. Now, as the Cataclysm drew to a close Karl Ingold took his newly acquired children, Rene and Jakob on expeditions with him, most notably to Sumeru. This is where Rene began to show
signs that he was a little bit special. During one expedition, Rene
realized that his and Jakob's bodies were not like normal humans
and instead bore more similarity to that of the sacred lotus found in the Vourukasha Oasis. In other words, they were somehow related to the remains of the former Hydro Archon which is kind of weird, given the timeline and it's part of the reason why I suspect Lyris knew there was something peculiar about these orphaned kids that she took in right from the start. Rene proved himself to be a child prodigy performing complete analyses on the ruined Khaenri’ahn technology in the desert and their Azosite energy sources. And this was before he lost all his baby teeth. So it should be around this time that he began studying abyssal energy as well claiming that it had some kind
of higher authority over Teyvat than elemental energy, as it could possess a will. So, something like sentience. Jakob eventually fell ill due to malnutrition and in order to save him Rene leveraged this abyssal power that he'd been studying. This only succeeded because
of their unique non-human constitutions. This is important for later. Now, as Rene continued his research alongside Jakob he realized that the world of Teyvat had been through several apocalyptic cycles and that this current cycle was the last one. There will be no new civilizations after this one. This is the prophecy that was made by his world formula and it's a conclusion that other civilizations ─like the ancient pre-Fontaine civilization of Remuria─ also seemed to come to. At the very least, Fontaine
would meet its end in another flood so Rene made it his life's mission to see that humanity would survive at any cost. Once Rene and Jakob came of age and returned to Fontaine they joined the Institute of Natural Philosophy and reconnected with Alain and Mary-Ann the former of which had also joined the Institute. Alain had proved himself to be
something of a mechanical genius and was working on revolutionary technology like artificial intelligence,
with the help of his assistant Carter. Mary-Ann had joined the Marechaussee Phantoms like her adoptive father had but often visited her adoptive brother at the Institute. Alain would then design a robotic dog, named Seymour, for her to help her with her work and to keep her safe. This is the boar-Mimic-dog-thing in the quest that we call Mori and yes, it's the same robot dog
that you find in the Melusine quest. We'll talk a little bit about him later. Rene's research re-centered on Abyss-related stuff and his determination to see
that humanity survived this apocalypse led him to form his own organization, secretly: the Narzissenkreuz Ordo or Order of the Daffodil Cross. Rene concluded, through
his research, that only evolved humans ─or so he called neo-humans─ could survive such an apocalypse and he began performing experiments
with the abyssal dragon Elynas having Jakob consume its flesh which made him a lot stronger and caused Jakob to gain the body of an abyssling. Now, I think this is the very
first instance of this happening to a human (that we know of, that's recorded) but Consecrated Beasts
were actually once just normal animals that ate the flesh of gods and then mutated in a very similar way to how Jakob did so Jakob's condition is likely not an isolated incident. Which implies that the Abyss Order may have actually eaten the flesh of gods at one point which is kind of a funny thing to think about. Anyway, during this time,
Carter's health began to decline really rapidly so Rene tried to perform the
same abyssal treatment that he did on Jakob onto Carter, hoping it would turn him into a neo-human and then allow him to recover. It did not. Instead, Carter appears
to have dissolved into a weird lump of flesh and Rene realized then and there that his neo-human plan would no longer work because the procedure did not work on normal humans; only those like him or Jakob with unique constitutions. He would need to find another plan. But one without the help of Alain because Alain was furious with Rene over the fate of Carter. Rene had genuinely thought his plan would work and he regretted his broken relationship with Alain and really wanted to make things right. And did not go about it a good way. It should be around this time that Rene and Jakob found what was left of director Lyris and they managed to convince her
to help them find a new solution for humanity's survival. It's a little bit muddy here but I think Lyris is the one
who shows Rene the Primordial Waters. Once he had good grasp on these waters' properties Rene came up with a new plan: instead of making neo-humans he could dissolve the people
of Fontaine into one liquid mass using the Primordial Waters. By discarding their physical forms, like Oceanids the people of Fontaine should
be able to survive the apocalypse. They tested this theory on Rene first. Rene declared that he will become reborn through water and that he would return and save the people of Fontaine. Which is very fitting for him because his name, Rene, comes from
Renatus which means “to be reborn” and his last name, Petrichor, is the scent of rain so he's reborn through water... kind of. Anyway, the ritual succeeded and although the aftermath
is also a bit murky─surprise, surprise─ it seems like Rene managed not only to transform himself but managed to revive Carter by absorbing his memory from within the Primordial Waters. Now, Rene must have thought
that reviving Carter would please Alain and then allow them to mend their friendship. And it did not. But regardless, neo-Rene discovered
that this whole dissolving process allowed for the memories
and skills of other dissolved people to be absorbed by other people; much like how an Oceanid can absorb other Oceanids. They successfully dissolve and absorb some people and then realize that these people can basically be reduced into a liquid consciousness and then later maybe implanted into robot bodies. But robotic bodies at scale would require the help of Alain the mechanical genius and Alain wanted nothing to do with it or Rene! And after a skirmish that he seems to have won Alain broke off all ties with Rene. Rene was then forced to execute his original plan of dissolving all of Fontaine into basically what is one gigantic Oceanid. Yeah I know, it's a little insane. Mary-Ann and Alain learned of this new plan and gathered a small army of Mekas and Marechaussee Phantoms to stop them. And the confrontation
took place inside of the dragon Elynas because that's where a lot of the experiments were done. Mary-Ann appears to have perished in this struggle which may have caused Lyris to have some kind of change of heart and betray Rene and Jakob. Jakob survived the whole ordeal but Rene's fate seems to be a little bit unclear although he likely perished. Mary-Ann, on the other hand, may have been reborn within Lyris like, kind of absorbed and then
spat out as a little baby Oceanid who would then gravitate back
down towards the old orphanage where some of her happiest memories were and then she just kinda stayed there for 400 years. Alain also survived this ordeal and proceeded to spend the rest of his life buried in his research out of grief. Later he founded the Fontaine Research Institute
of Kinetic Energy Engineering and passed away of old age. Now, all of this will become more
relevant to the greater plot of Fontaine in the Archon quest for reasons
that I think are probably pretty obvious. It seems to be the source of all
the Primordial Water nonsense that's going on. And you know, the Hydro Archon's prophecy seems to reference Rene's original plans, so there's that. But we're not done yet. We still have one more quest to cover and it is a shorter one, thankfully. That whole conflict inside
of Elynas that killed Rene and stuff that was important for another reason too. See, a bunch of the machines and Mekas exploded during this confrontation
with the Marechaussee Phantoms and the fragments of these
machines cut into the dragon's insides and somehow this explosion
created the entire race of Melusines. And that is why all Melusines are
born with an odd mechanical token. These are fragments of the
exploded people-dissolving machines that Rene made as well as the Phantom's combat Mekas; at least I'm assuming Rene had machines. Just... I'm guessing, okay? At the very least it's part of the Mekas. So that's the birth of the Melusines. Uh, as for the quest, it's pretty simple. We basically just followed a Melusine named Mamere who loved to paint but whose paintings no one ever appreciated or understood except for the robotic dog named Seymour. And yes that is the same dog that Alain Guillotine made for his sister Mary-Ann. Now, Mamere could hear the voice of her father who we later learn is actually Elynas and after we helped her out she wanted to paint us something as a thank you gift but was out of paint, so we helped
her gather more material for paint only to later find out that
the primary ingredient of Mamere's paints were her father's blood. Now you remember Jakob, yeah? Rene's best buddy,
adopted brother, and accomplice in everything. Well, he has also been trying to collect the blood of Elynas in order to revive the dragon over the last 400 years. And that is also why he was after Mamere's paintings. Will he manage to do it? Eh... It's unclear. He apparently has enough blood to pull this off but we got to talk to Elynas himself and he doesn't seem to want to be revived so who knows what'll happen there. Elynas is quite the interesting character because he's a Durin that we actually get to talk to. As you may recall, Durin was described as a horrifying dragon that brought untold destruction
to Mondstadt during the Cataclysm and Elynas was really no different. But if you read the lore of the Festering Desire and the Dragonspine Spear you kinda get a glimpse of the world through Durin's eyes and the way he talks isn't what you'd
expect of a mindless destructo dragon. I mean, he calls Dvalin a lovely, tender lover when he tore through Durin's neck to kill him and then he says he'll come back someday so they can sing and dance and play together. It's not really the mentality of something that goes around destroying everything. What we can say is that the way Durin saw the world and the way the world saw Durin
were two very different things. And this carries over to both Elynas and all of the Melusines. Now, Elynas tells us that
he didn't realize his expression of happiness was destroying the world
around him, and making everyone else suffer so when he found all of this out, he became really sad and just super depressed. And then he kind of sort of made friends with Rene and Jakob and later on, when they died
and everything exploded inside of him suddenly Elynas had a bunch of
kids and also the Breacher Primus which Elynas describes as his cells, so... all of the sudden Elynas is like "Whoa this is really cool, I can create stuff, I'm happy now." But you see the dichotomy of perspective here, right? Like, it's a big deal. It's even visible in the Breacher Primus who are very violent to basically everyone except the Melusines who think that they're, like, cute
and the Melusines keep them as pets. I mean, having unusual taste is one thing but this is kind of on a different level. Although it's not exactly clear how different these levels of perception are until you do the Book of Esoteric
Revelations subquest with Canotila and travel to these ruins of the Unified Civilization that are floating in space under a shattered sky which, by the way, this is supposed to be, like the future that Rene saw, supposedly. Like, this should be the apocalypse that he saw at the end of the world formula, but that's a side note. But how we saw them, how the Traveler saw them was just this, this horrible,
tragic scene of ruin and destruction. But what Canotila saw was like a calm, serene forest and a beautiful garden. Where we saw Rifthounds, she saw a cute puppy. And honestly, this made me wonder if Teyvat is almost superimposed with another reality. If one side is destroyed and the other is beautiful and then vice versa. And those who have special eyes who can see the quote, unquote, "truth", like the Melusines see the other reality, and not the
one that most of Teyvat perceives. And then that made me think about Kaeya with, like, one eye being covered all the time. Like, does the other eye work
but it only ever sees, like, the other side like that superimposed reality? And is that actually what it's talking
about, like, in the book about Fischl? Like, where she has one eye that sees the truth and then the other one doesn't? Like, is it the same thing? I don't know but now I'm suspicious. Alternatively, it could be
something like how in horror movies a protagonist will be starving and then find a kitchen full of, like, delicious, freshly
cooked food and then start eating only for the illusion to finally
wear off and then they realize they were eating something they
definitely should not have been eating and then the kitchen wasn't clean at all but, like, a cesspit of mold and decay. It reminds me of that, just a little bit. But then I also kinda wonder, like knowing what we know about Elynas and Durin and, like, how they perceive things; if that same perspective applies
to Rhinedottir's other creations like the Rifthounds. Like, do the Riftwolves think
they're actually playing with us like a dog would play fetch or whatever but they're actually really hurting us? And on that note, do Hilichurls
see each other as normal humans but then see us as monsters and that's why they attack us? I know it seems kind of far-fetched but the idea kinda messes me up inside. Speculation aside, if you do finish the quest and then help Mamere fix the robot dog Seymour the dog will set out on a journey to find his owner Mary-Ann. And if you head to the headquarters
for the Narzissenkreuz Ordo you will run into both Ann and Seymour who will have an amnesia-filled reunion that leaves the door wide open for future quests which I'm very excited for. This is an optional thing to do though so if you haven't done it, go do it, it's very short very heartwarming, and very sweet. And also you get a lot of Luxurious Chests, so that's cool. And the room is neat. I mean, that's where I'm sitting right now in the... yeah, it's a cool place. Come find it. Time to shift gears a bit now though and talk about some shared themes
that might be relevant later on. Prior to 4.0, I kind of figured Scaramouche was right and that Arlecchino was unstable unhinged, and just batshit crazy. But after talking with Lyney and
reading his and Lynette's stories and after reading some lines from Arlecchino herself on her kid's updated character cards I'm kind of convinced that she's
just an unhinged mama bear instead. Very protective over her kids
albeit still kind of a bit crazy because she did apparently murder the former head of the House of Hearth while she was a child so no denying that but I think she might be more like
an unstable mama bear, like I said. Like ma—she gives mama bear energy, okay? Now, I believe with no basis whatsoever, that Arlecchino will be put on trial and falsely
accused of theft, likely of the Gnosis. If the Oratrice ends up being a Gnosis-powered machine then her investigation into it would therefore make sense and if the Gnosis ends up missing that means we'd have a trial without the Oratrice. Now, why does this matter, you might wonder and why am I specifically choosing theft as the crime? Without confusing this section too much the Narzissenkreuz Institute is full of ''Alice in Wonderland'' references. The achievement you get for completing it is even called "Ann in Wonderland" and the Nymph's Dream Artifact Set talks about a fell dragon over and over and over again that it later names the Jabberwock which is from a poem in Alice and Wonderland where a young hero slays the monster with the holy sword. The kids at the Institute playact this story all the time and the Nymph's Dream Set talks
about how the role of the dragon or hero can be switched depending on the viewer's perspective. Now, Rene was often described as the hero of these tales but by the end of the Nymph's Dream Artifact Set he was described as the dragon, making him the Jabberwock the monster, and the villain of the story. And that's very fitting because it's his work that matches the prophecy of
destruction that Egeria left behind. So, will Rene make an appearance? Well, we'll do a deep dive in a separate video. But that would make Arlecchino the hero but from a different perspective
you could call her the monster. You see what I'm trying to say here? Like, the monster and the hero are kind of interchangeable and it is a matter of perspective. Now, that aside, in the ''Alice in Wonderland'' books the Knave, which is also Arlecchino's code name is put on trial by the Queen of Hearts and is then falsely accused of theft. The Mad Hatter, who has also been put on trial for murder (well, murdering the time but whatever) he's called to defend the Knave. The Mad Hatter in this case should be Lyney with Lynette as the March Hare and Freminet as the Dormouse since Lyney was the one
put on trial for murder earlier in the quest and would be available to defend
the Knave since he's her successor. And also because Childe is in jail and I don't think that the Traveler will try to defend it but maybe, who knows? In this trial, the judge is the King of Hearts,
so in this case its Neuvillette whereas Furina should be the Queen of Hearts who's leading the prosecution of the Knave because the Knave stole something of hers. In the books, it's the Queen of Hearts' tarts. In Genshin it should probably be the Gnosis, right? Eventually, the Knave is found innocent but a verdict is never
properly reached because Alice throws a fit. But this would end up lining up with a verdict never properly being reached in Genshin because either the Oratrice isn't functioning because it's missing its Gnosis or the trial is interrupted by something big and nasty. Something like... another Harbinger maybe with different objectives from Arlecchino. Listen, there is no possible way that Arlecchino and Childe are the only Harbingers in Fontaine. We've only dealt with five
out of eleven Harbingers so far, I think, right? We've dealt with Childe, Scaramouche, Signora kind of Dottore, and now Arlecchino. We haven't met anyone else in person so there's no way it's only these two here. And I will present my theory on what I think is going to happen in its own video, but for now... given how I believe that Arlecchino's presence in Fontaine is a reference to the Knave that went on trial and how deeply connected ''Alice in Wonderland'' is to the Narzissenkreuz Institute and the fact that Arlecchino literally runs an orphanage that regularly creates super elite soldiers many of whom seem like they're the results of some unethical experiments it makes me wonder if she may be more intricately connected to the Narzissenkreuz Institute. She is from Fontaine after all. She's native, and it also appears that she's mostly human except for her black hands and striking eyes so it makes you wonder if she wasn't also the subject to some questionable experiments at some point and if the research was based on Rene's work. And I don't think it's a coincidence that Childe who has the traits of a neo-human just like Jakob is the Harbinger that's present in Fontaine. Well, I think that just about does it for the, uh, quest recaps but I have a bunch of little observations
and tidbits that I want to share so it's time once again
for all my miscellaneous mini-theories and observations starting off with the Chasm. When you're in the prophecy area if you turn back and look around
through the portal that you came from you'll see an area that matches
the room Halfdan died in back in the Chasm. If you recall the water from
the upside down fountain in that room brought peace to the ever-suffering Dainsleif and the Abyss Lector that we found there thought that the water there might be able to be used to undo the curse of the people of Khaenri'ah. In light of new knowledge these waters might actually
have been waters of the Primordial Sea doubly likely since the Primordial Waters flow upwards and the Chasm fountain is upside down. Moving on, I just kind of want to talk about Furina for a second. Furina is really an interesting character as far as Archons are concerned because don't let her Fischl-like persona fool you. This Archon is incredibly insecure,
horribly lonely, and a bit cowardly and she's very scared, and under a lot of unwanted pressure. I say cowardly because although she talks a good game when given the chance to show her raw power in combat or otherwise, she gets really nervous and sputter some excuses onto why she can't do it so she just kinda, like, backs out, you know? I call her scared because she sought the Traveler out first. I see this as an attempt
to gain the upper hand as quickly as possible. See, Furina has a very vast information network and she's heard that
in every nation that the Traveler visited massive upheaval changes have taken place. I personally think she's terrified of the prospect that the arrival of the Traveler could trigger the beginning of this prophecy that was left by her predecessor. Now, as for the rest of this claim: well, she kind of just says them all herself. At the midway point between Acts 1 and 2 if you go into the Fountain of Lucine,
you can actually hear her. Furina: So interminable... So lonely... just how much longer? Ashikai: So, yeah. I mean, Furina's really just a scared kid putting up a really strong front. She's definitely a lot less mature than Nahida, in any case. Speaking of maturity though,
let's talk a little bit about Neuvillette. I'll just say it, I think Neuvillette
is the Hydro Dragon taken human form and I really doubt many will disagree with me at this point. Obviously, there's that whole thing
at the start of the Archon quest where Freminet tells us about the legend that says the Hydro Dragon's mood
affects the weather, and through Acts 1 and 2 we see Neuvillette's mood
suspiciously corresponding to the rain. He is surprisingly empathetic
and likely feels down after every trial which is why on most days there's a trial, it rains. He also has those slit pupils
akin to all other dragons and Vishaps and, uh, he weirdly fits this riddle from volume 5 of the Byakuyakoku Chronicles. That's really hard to say quickly, I'm sorry. It says: "What walks on four feet in the early morning two feet during the day, and three feet at night?" and then it presents the answer
as "A Vishap who transforms into a person to attend a ball, then breaks one of its legs and eventually ends up walking with a cane." I don't think Neuvillette has broken a leg but a masquerade ball does fit Fontaine as it's the chapter titled “Masquerade of the Guilty” and if he is the Hydro Dragon then he would be a Vishap in human form that uses a cane. The explanation for this riddle then goes on to talk about an old prophecy which says "the Dragon of Water will descend in the form of a human." His intro text also references a Bible verse, Job 41:34 which talks about the Leviathan which these days is what we call giant sea serpents. I also have this on-going theory that dragons in Genshin usually have a dwarven counterpart that they're named after or share traits with. Durin and Dvalin are explicit because those are actually names of dwarves. But Neuvillette obviously isn't. But this guy also looks just like Fontaine's otters and that's when I realized that otter was actually the name of a noteworthy dwarf. Otter's story basically
involves him shape-shifting into an otter and then being murdered by Loki
who tried to get out of his punishment but got punished more each time he tried. But the overall moral of the story turned out to be something along the lines of how important it was to adhere to the laws and the consequences set therein. This seems like a really fitting theme for Neuvillette so I'm gonna take it. I will expand upon this idea one day. I will. I'll do it. But I have a second
Neuvillette theory and it involves Egeria. For an Archon, Egeria
was particularly sympathetic to the dragon race and that makes me think that she may have befriended them. Possibly going so far as to take one as a consort. In this case, it would be Neuvillette. Now, I say this because in mythology Egeria was the consort
of the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius. Given that ancient Fontaine is based on Rome and the first king was Remus Neuvillette being Numa seems to hold some water here. Myth goes that Numa recorded Egeria's words in books the contents of which established the original framework used for laws and justice in Rome. Numa then took these books to his grave only to have them unearthed 500 years later. When I read that, I immediately pictured a Hydro Dragon learning from the Hydro Archon the concept of law and justice and who was only able
to pass them off to Egeria's successor, Furina after 500 years or so because let's face it Neuvillette is the only one with any real power in Fontaine right now, not Furina so I don't feel like
the whole thing got passed on to her just yet. And maybe it's just me but Neuvillette really feels like an awkward father trying to prepare his spoiled, unruly child for a world of real responsibilities while, you know, kinda doing her homework for her. Plus, and this is absolute crack I swear, but hear me out. While their personalities are quite off Furina and Neuvillette bear some design similarities to GGZ Kiana and Siegfried, making me wonder if Siegfried is supposed to be
a reference to Neuvillette in some ways and that would make Egeria Cecilia and Kiana Furina. This idea gains a little bit more merit outside of the crack when you realize that Siegfried and Cecilia
were both from very special bloodlines and the merging of these two bloodlines created a very special holy maiden in Kiana. The mixing of a demon god
and a dragon kind of mirrors this idea and it's something that HoYo does a lot in their games so I'm not gonna call this completely impossible yet. And before you ask, yes, he is at least several hundred years old
in his human form anyway so this is all viable. Speaking of dragons, let's talk slugs. Melusines appear to be based off of
sea slugs, specifically sea bunnies and this firmly establishes the pattern of draconic things being related to sea slugs in Genshin. Like, how Dvalin is most certainly based off of a blue glaucus and Seelies are based off of cliones. Azhdaha is obviously a little bit
more toad-ish, I can't really justify him but they're... you know, it's still kind of somewhat aquatic. But the warden of Apep looked like it could be something more like, uh you know, like a melibe viridis, if I'm saying that right. Does my Latin sound good? It doesn't, I know. It's fine. I'm gonna practice, I promise. But I'm starting to think that there might be more to the whole Primordial Sea thing in the literal sense when both your god creatures and dragons have the same real world inspirations in slugs. I really can't wait to see what ends up as a frosted nudibranch though ‘cause those things are really pretty. Maybe they'll be the Cryo Dragon they'll be like somewhat transparent. That'd be so cool. I have no clever segue here,
so here, let's just talk about Indemnitium. This stuff is a type of energy that the Oratrice produces by distilling people's faith
in trials and the justice system. The word indemnity means
a sum of money paid out in compensation which basically means that Indemnitium is your legal fees converted into energy. Now, something I vaguely recall is Venti saying that gods get power from people's belief. And if that's actually true and not just him spitballing then in theory, Furina is knowingly weakening herself if she's collecting that
power of belief through the Oratrice and using it to power the city instead. Which might explain why
she shies away from physical conflict. She might actually be kinda weak. Well, like, in lore, you know, like, I'm pretty sure she's gonna be busted
when she comes out as a playable character like, that's just gonna happen. It does seem like this power source is becoming less and less reliable though and I do wonder if that's
because Furina has made the courtroom a type of theater so people take it less seriously. Otherwise, there would be no reason to research the Pneumousia reactors as a secondary power source. It's not like they can really use it
anyway since it's completely unstable. It's kind of reminiscent of nuclear energy in its infancy but it's food for thought nonetheless. You know what else is food? Salsa but not this salsa because this is someone's name. So I made a theory
a while back that explored this idea of Pierro not being ranked number one of the Fatui Harbingers but instead number zero, or like, just the director. This actually what the theory was.
I didn't actually say number zero. I just said he was like the director but so he wasn't number one. He's, like, outside but whatever. And if that was the case, then
that meant that there was one Harbinger we had never seen before and never heard of before. I will leave a link to that video
in the description if you're interested but there's something kind of interesting in Fontaine that also adds some weight
to the idea of Pierro being number zero and it involves Salsa. Salsa is this little kid and a member of the three-man alliance of artists to overthrow the evil organization and protect the future of Fontaine... club? I guess? The first two members are the Traveler and Paimon and are therefore numbers one and two. Salsa then states that because she was the founder that she should be number zero. This definitely feels like a hint from the writers since the Fatui are the only
other numbered organization in the game. I think. But now I wonder if I'm right about who the unknown Harbinger is or was. And if I'm not who could it be? Okay, I think that's all from me for reals today. I actually wrote two theories before I even sat down to write this recap summary video so there should be... That should give you a pretty good idea of how inspiring I have found this region so far. It's very inspiring. There is
some fun, fun stuff in the pipeline. Now, while the names of my honorary French channel members scroll by across the screen I'm gonna talk about Childe’s whale, I guess because someone asked me to. I had no thoughts on it until they made me think about it so here it goes, I guess? So, you remember how I said Neuvillette was the Leviathan or, like, at least referencing it. Well, as it turns out one of the oldest species
of sperm whale is called the Livyatan which is named after the Leviathan. Are they the same thing in Genshin? No, probably not, but I think
it's curious to put an emphasis on it now and then show a giant shadow
in the waters when Freminet is diving and then also the giant shadow
way back at the beginning of Inazuma with, like, that one scene that never happened with the Traveler underwater. Now, Childe is named after Ajax which is a real world mythological character but also a mythological figure in Genshin who sailed a ship into the belly of a whale and then fought a dragon, maybe to save his love Snegurochka? I'm butchering that one too. I am so sorry. This appears to mimic the myth of Ketus: a giant sea monster or whale
that Perseus killed to save Andromeda. And if you've watched my video on Childe where I propose that he was related to Parsifal then you would also know
that Parsifal is another word for Percival and I think HoYo is not above making a pun out of the name's Percival and Perseus. I really don't. I think that's something they would do. HoYo also really loves cosmic whales and prominently displays one
on the Astral Express in Honkai: Star Rail and they also call the ancient
monsters of old in that game "Leviathans" so I think this might be an ongoing multiverse theme. I'm not really sure. Was that anything definitive about Childe's whale? No, probably not. But that's okay. That's what I got. And that is all I have for me today, guys. This was an hour long, nearly. I'm, like, six minutes short
but thank you all so much for watching if you're still here and please stick around the channel because there are theories in this pipeline that made my head spin when I was writing them so I cannot wait to see your reactions to them. This is gonna be great. Anyway, take care, guys. I am losing my voice. I will catch you all in the next video. Hopefully it'll be back by then. Bye!
