You know, at this point, I'm pretty sure I've lost my mind. I started today's investigation intent on figuring out what the heck was up with Xamaran because I feel like, as far as the Chasm goes that's, like, the one thing we're never gonna get closure on. I'm sure the Sinner stuff is gonna come up again and so will the Celestial Nail and stuff. But, like, the giant glowing mushroom that talks too much and never elaborates? Yeah, we're never going back to that. So I thought I'd just, you know, see what I could find; quick little investigation. Get in, get out, get on with my life. And that did not happen. What should have been a very simple Chasm retrospective seasoned with some light theorizing somehow turned into
a weirdly Eucharist-themed conspiracy board full of mushrooms, fairies, alcohol, snakes, and mimesis. And I may or may not have convinced myself that Paimon is actually supposed to be emergency food, like, for real. In the lore, emergency food is lore. It's a little bit of a journey to get there, though so you gotta stick with me,
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into emergency food mushroom madness. Now, you know the drill, guys: timestamps, citations, and links for further reading will be in the description box while post-video notes and corrections can be found in the pinned comment. Okay, it's time to get really weird and I apologize because it's a bit of a long journey to get to the Paimon part. But we have to start at the very beginning and the beginning is our good old friend Xamaran. For reasons I will not elaborate on in this video I have been researching the Eucharist and similar practices in religions
and cultures around the world but specifically in Egypt and Greece. So, imagine my surprise when a nostalgia trip to the Chasm throws this topic at me like a baseball to the face. For those of you who don't know Eucharist refers to the, quote,
"ritualistic consumption of food or drink as if it were the flesh or blood of a deity." The practice comes from a few lines in the Christian Bible like in Luke 22:19-20, where Jesus says "This is my body, which is given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me" as he distributed a loaf of bread to his disciples. Now, the idea here is that consuming the bread was an act of honoring and remembering the sacrifice that Jesus was about to make. This is followed by Jesus pouring wine,
identifying it as his blood that would seal a holy contract between him and God. This is called the New Covenant. The Old Covenant was a contract between God and the Hebrews and that was signed not with Jesus's blood
or a similar savior's blood but with the blood of animals. So, the Eucharist ritual is known as a Sacrament a very specific type of ritual in which God's grace is imparted upon the participants. In other words, it's a way to receive God's blessing. For the Eucharist Sacrament, only bread and wine that has been made sacred through consecration which is a type of blessing, could be used. So, in summary, consecrated bread
is the body and an act of remembrance while consecrated wine
is the blood and a symbol of the covenant or contract with God. For game lore reasons, this is kinda all you need to know. Now, into that, these Eucharist practices are a bit more literal than they are symbolic. Consuming flesh bestows longevity, knowledge, and power and consuming blood does something similar for reasons we'll expand upon later. But, for a quick example,
you don't need to look any further than Apep who formed a contract with King Deshret which gave her the right to eat his body when he died in order to gain all the knowledge he had acquired. In this case, Deshret's body is the sacramental bread. But then we have things like the consecrated beasts regular animals that ate the flesh of fallen deities and gained their powers and longevity a concept that we're gonna come back to later. But consecrated beasts
are weirdly similar to the abysslings and we know this because we can look at Jakob Ingold a man who ate the flesh of a dragon
and turned into an Iniquitous Baptist gaining both elemental powers and longevity. Now, we can assume that other abysslings transformed into their current shape via similar methods. After all, the people of Khaenri'ahn descent did not turn into abysslings after the Cataclysm. That only happened about 100 years later after Chlothar Alberich founded the Abyss Order and even then, we've seen other abysslings unaffiliated with Khaenri'ah,
like Jakob and the Sinner's Cryo Herald. This suggests that the process is both voluntary and completely separate from the Cataclysm itself. Now, what's really interesting about this idea of eating the flesh of a deity
or, like, a dragon or other nonhuman and gaining their power and longevity is that Genshin is using a lot of really specific terms. For example, consecrated beasts use "consecrated" which means that they are quote, unquote "blessed" in a way that would make them
appropriate to consume for a sacrament and abysslings are all named after some sort of priest or church official. We've got, like, Heralds, Lectors, Baptists, and even the Mages since the word "Mage" comes from "Magi,"
and that's a Zoroastrian priest. And incidentally, all of this is very similar to the concept of Mo Dao Cultivation from the Chinese genre of xianxia. I'm not gonna go into too much detail here about that because I already made an entire video on it which you can find in the link downstairs. But I'm mentioning it because I think it's really cool that they all line up. At this point, you're probably wondering what the heck this has to do with Xamaran. Well, Xamaran is from Sumeru; they say as much and Sumeru draws a lot of its inspiration from Persian mythology and Zoroastrianism. So, it stands to reason
that Xamaran would reference something you know, from Zoroastrianism or Persian mythology, right? Let me draw your attention to the Shahmaran a mythical being from Persian mythology half-human, half-snake, and kinda like a Naga. The name is split into two parts: "Shah," meaning king or queen and "maran," meaning serpent. So, literally, "Queen of the Serpents" or "King" because there are actually
two big variants of the Shahmaran tale: one with a serpent queen and one with a serpent king. Let's talk about the queen for now and save the king for later. The queen version of the tale
of Shahmaran follows a young man who falls into an underground
tunnel system and meets Shahmaran half-beautiful woman, half-snake. The two fall in love, but the man becomes homesick and wishes to leave and visit his family so she lets him go, but makes him swear to never tell another soul about her. This is probably because there are legends about her flesh being the cure to all illnesses and the king has recently become severely ill so the king's vizier
has been using the king's illness as an excuse to look for her, because he knows that her flesh also grants infinite wisdom,
and he wants it for himself, like, selfishly. So, when he discovers that the young man knows where she is he either forces or tricks him into telling him where she is. Shahmaran is inevitably captured,
and she knows that she will be killed. So, she gives the young man very specific instructions about how her body should be prepared for consumption in order to get the desired effects but she doesn't really link what effect is gonna come from what preparation. She just gives some instructions on who should get what. These preparations vary depending on the source but in the simplest version, she says that she must be cooked in an earthenware pot and then her flesh is to be given to the sick king her extract... uh, should be given to the vizier and her broth should be given to the young man. So, the king eats the flesh and makes a full recovery the young man drinks the broth and gains all of her knowledge and the vizier drinks her extract and dies. So the TL;DR here: eating the body of a serpent queen heals the body the water boosts the mind, and the extract kills. So, how does this apply to the Chasm shroom? So, first off, this shroom is in
a tunnel system, just like Shahmaran and second, eating a shroom might be equal to consuming the flesh of a non-human. Well, we need a little fungi science to explain this one. The role of fungi in nature
is generally to decompose organic matter thus making all the nutrients
and chemicals within that matter bioavailable to living organisms. Generally, this organic matter is colonized by spores —which are kinda like seeds— and these put out these little roots called hyphae and these grow into large mats that we call mycelium. This mycelium is the real body of the fungi and the mushroom is just the fruiting body whose only goal is reproduction. Many fungi that live within the soil
form symbiotic relationships with nearby plant life, connecting its mycelium to the plant's roots to form
what is called a mycorrhizal network. This network allows for
communication and the sharing of resources between plants and fungi to occur. For example, in exchange for
sugars and lipids produced by plants fungi will provide micro nutrients a plant's roots wouldn't otherwise
be able to collect on its own as well as excess water. The network can also allow plants to share resources between each other. So, like, if one tree gets a bunch of nitrogen dumped on it and another tree 50 feet away needs nitrogen the first tree can literally ship excess nitrogen to the tree that needs it through the mycorrhizal network. And this is a lot like how the Ley Lines work in Genshin. And yes, I know that the Ley Lines are explicitly called ''the root system of Irminsul'' but that's also kind of the point. Fungi don't replace the roots of a tree,
they just help to supplement them. So, during Xamaran's quest, we help it seal away these fissures where the Dark Mud is leeching out of,
using both the Lumenstone and Xamaran's spores. Now, we know that the Dark Mud
in the Chasm comes out of the Ley Lines thanks to the Energy Amplifier event so that means that Xamaran is connected to the Ley Lines since they are actively sealing these Ley Line fissures with their own spores. And according to the parametric transformer Elemental Energy and memories
are what flow within the Ley Lines meaning that Xamaran is full of
memories and Elemental Energy which is probably why its
color scheme is so similar to Irminsul. That's a pretty rare texture in this game. And this matters, because, in Genshin,
memories are both power and life —an idea are gonna expand upon later— and memories are likened to the remembrance aspect of eating the sacramental bread. So, theoretically speaking, if I ate a Xamaran I should, by Genshin Eucharist logic,
gain wisdom and powers from it. Therefore, Xamaran is sacramental bread; a sacramental mushroom which is a very interesting thing to realize because we actually have
a perfect example of this already in-game. Well, a more explicit one. Allow me to draw your attention to the Rukkhashava Mushroom or as it's know in Chinese,
the Rukkhadevata Sacramental Mushroom. Yes, there is a mushroom in this game that is actually just straight up called ''sacramental.'' For obvious reasons, the description for this mushroom changes after Chapter III's Archon Quest while the name actually doesn't. But there's interesting information in both descriptions. The changed description says that these mushrooms grow on the dead tree called ''Rukkhadevata'' (which is her body) and the unchanged ones, as these mushrooms are harvested and consumed by the Akademiya's sages in order to honor her sacrifice in some sort of secret ritual. I dunno, man. That does sound pretty Eucharist to me. 'Cause, like, a sage can be a spiritual teacher as well not just, you know, a dean of a school thus likening him to some sort of priest. Therefore, these descriptions are basically saying that the priests of Rukkhadevata
consumed sacramental mushrooms as representations of her body
to remember her sacrifice, which is... exactly what the Eucharist rights are for but just for Jesus and not for Rukkhadevata. Now, of course, there is no real wisdom or power to gain from eating these mushrooms in particular simply because these mushrooms
don't actually grow on her body and therefore have none of her memories. However, as the avatar of Irminsul I find the idea of having mushrooms growing on her and being considered part of the sacred sacrament similar to my hypothesis about
Xamaran doing the same for Irminsul because Xamaran is technically growing on Irminsul's body if it's connected to its root system. But let's pause for a moment here because the mushroom that Rukkhashava is based off of is very important. It's also called the lingzhi or the reishi mushroom. Now, in Chinese mythology, the reishi mushroom is the mushroom of immortality
and was coveted by the gods themselves. Taoist temples were called ''mushroom houses'' because Taoist priests would
consume hallucinogenic varieties of reishi in order to interact with the spirit realm as they attempted to achieve
the powers and longevity of the gods earning it the monicker of the immortality mushroom. These mushroom houses remind me a lot of Haypasia in her cave and her use of the Spirit Borneol in place of the hallucinogenic mushrooms. Now, it is possible that Spirit Borneol is a type of mushroom because, technically speaking, plants and mushrooms haven't always had this
super clear distinction between them. Like, oftentimes mushrooms are referred to as herbs in ancient documents and texts and whatnot so that's something to consider. Reishi mushrooms were so important to the Chinese gods that they even had a heavenly field of mushrooms that grew on the sacred mountain of Penglai not too dissimilar from the orchards where the peaches of immortality grew. Gods and kings alike were frequently depicted holding reishi mushrooms and they were even a favorite design for the Ruyi or wish-granting scepter wielded by royalty and gods alike. And the idea of immortality shrooms being food from god or food of god is found in a bunch of different cultures. For example, manna, which is the bread from God was sent to exiled Israelites by God in the Bible. And this has been thought to be a desert truffle since it matches the description of manna. It appears quickly in the cool morning,
it melts in the midday sun and it cannot be stored, lest it become infested with worms. Now, Aztecs also referred to certain types of mushrooms as the flesh of the god. Like, that's a direct translation of what they call them. And in Siberia, we have the amanita muscaria whose myth says that it was a gift from the creator god from which humans learned great things so they granted wisdom. Now, reishi mushrooms tend to be polypores which is a specific kind of fungus that grows on trees. The longevity associated with them may have come from the fact that unlike other mushrooms polypores have really long lifespans. They start off a bit soft and squishy like regular mushrooms but over time, they grow bigger and tougher until they are almost indistinguishable from wood. This is how they get the nickname
''stone mushroom'' or ''stone fruit.'' And yes, I actually went hunting for polypores in the woods just for this segment. Levi says hi. I also think it's interesting that Wanderer who tried to ascend to godhood and Collei, who has a snake god trapped inside of her are the two characters
who use these for ascension materials. And, funnily enough the taxonomic name for the reishi mushroom is the ganoderma which should sound familiar because sea ganodermas are mushroom-looking things that both Yae Miko and Kazuha use to ascend. Miko might use them because she's a temple priestess and the guardian of a sacred tree but Kazuha is really funny to me because... Ganoderma mushroom varieties really adore maple trees, and... Well, just look at him. Okay, so for now, we've established
that the Rukkhashava Mushrooms have a sacramental use and are based on the reishi mushrooms which were consumed in order to
grant immortality and special powers something that we also see
with both abysslings and consecrated beasts after they partake of "le god flesh." But this mushroom is not the only reishi mushroom in the game. We've also got this so-called strange mushroom which Chlothar grew from the dead body of his wife intending to use it as medicine to de-Hilichurl Caribert. And yes, I know I just got done saying reishi are polypores and grow on dead trees, mostly but they can grow on most wood-based substrates and if we wanna go a little bit crazy we could talk about how Norse mythology says that humans were carved from trees and that's
why it's growing out of a dead body, but... maybe we just don't go there for right now. Now, the medicine created from the strange mushroom had to be blessed by a god in order to work which would make the medicine sacramental. But thus far, we've only really talked about how eating flesh or shrooms nets you power and longevity neither of which were Chlothar's goals so what was the point of the medicine then? Well, we know that Chlothar
was trying to restore Caribert's memory and this might surprise you but the recipe that he followed to make this medicine is weirdly similar to a memory medicine that we make for Aranaga during the Aranyaka quest: the Arahaoma. The Arahaoma is based on the mythical haoma or soma which has been identified as a plant deity or magical elixir that grants immortality. And I know that doesn't seem
at all related to restoring memories but stick with me here. So, Chlothar's recipe used the strange mushroom (which looks like a red reishi) a Sumeru Rose, and a Kalpalata Lotus. Aranaga had a subtly different list of ingredients. They needed a Zohrah Mushroom,
which is a special, light blue reishi and then a Yajna Grass, which looks like a very red Padisarah (which are normally the same purple as a Sumeru Rose) and, finally, a Barsam Flower, which is a type of lotus which could easily be misidentified with a Kalpalata Lotus. If he was just working with really loose descriptions of what these items should be and how you get them then I can easily see how he would be making some mistakes. When Aranaga talks about the Arahaoma he says that it's an "elixir that carries our memories" then equates memories to life when he says "There are dreams because there is memory. Memory is nourished, so there is life." By this logic, the Arahaoma is also an immortality elixir or an elixir of life because memories promote life. This is why the Arahaoma is needed
to heal Mawtiyima, the decaying forest. They need to share their memories with the guardian fungi named Jamikayomars (who is also named after a primordial Zoroastrian king, for some reason) and he will then absorb the memories within the Arahaoma and allow the memories to flow
into the heart of the forest itself kind of like we've just injected
something into a mycorrhizal network. To put a further point on this, he later says that, quote, "Death is just a one-time loss of memories." So if memories nourish life, and death is just a one-time loss of memories, then memories are life. By this logic, Chlothar must have been trying to make a version of the haoma to restore Caribert's memory and perhaps that's why the strange mushroom needed to be grown from his wife's body. He needed her memory and a fungi that could extract it. In this way, the mushroom-based haoma is a sort of sacramental beverage in the same way that mushroom flesh can be a sacramental bread. And, weirdly, both are a path to immortality which, for the record, is still
totally in line with the Eucharist rights because Jesus claims that those who partake will "live forever" because he will return for them at the end of days. One Eucharist prayer from the Didache says: "You gave us spiritual food and drink and eternal life through your Son." So, yeah, it's not a stretch that all these holy nom-noms bestow some kind of longevity. And, theoretically, we could equate the haoma with the soma, the Amrita, the ambrosia, and nectar since all of these are immortality elixir drinks and plants and all of them have at least been theorized by scholars to actually be/or involve mushrooms and all of them are consumed by gods or given to people to make them into gods at some point. Now, usually the sacramental beverage is a wine which is kinda funny, because even
if the haoma didn't use mushrooms if it was a kind of wine, then fungi are required because yeast are fungi, and yeast are responsible for the production of alcohol through fermentation. And without yeast, you don't have alcohol which means you don't have wine. Therefore, mushrooms are required for alcohol. A while back, I made a video
about Nicole, a witch from the Hexenzirkel and the intro was all about the brewing of beer and wine throughout history mostly because I was connecting her to the Dawn Winery but also because the history of European witches is found in the brewing of beer. I also went on to propose that Nicole may have been a Seelie or related to them, as Seelies in Genshin are often likened to angels, and the name of Diluc's tavern is Angel Share which refers to the portion
of alcohol that is lost to evaporation during the distilling process. It's the portion set aside for the angels. But the thing is, the word "seelies" refers specifically to a type of Welsh fairy and we have all kinds of evidence that points to the Seelies fairies and angels being the same thing in Genshin. And they're all related to alcohol one way or another. For example, one of the earliest depictions of a Seelie in-game that wasn't a will-o'-wisp is the one from "A Drunkard's Tale" a book where we get the infamous phrase: "What you call wine, we call the Abyss." Then, the only confirmed Seelie
we know about is Nabu Malikata the Goddess of Flowers, and she has a few nods to alcohol. Like, you know how Jesus turned water into wine but also called wine his blood? Well, Nabu Malikata did the opposite
and turned her blood into water. Wherever she walked in the desert, her bleeding wounds turned into magic, pure springs. And it's not the most obvious
or explicit of alcohol references but she was also called the Mistress of Orchards and Dreams. Orchards are where you grow fruit,
not vines; that'd be a vineyard. But since you can make wine out of literally any fruit I don't think this is really a problem. And if you combine the orchard with dreams, you might get this sensation of alcoholic intoxication and that was something she was known to give people: that euphoric, intoxicating feeling. She also birthed the Jinn from the flowers that bloomed in her blood springs, and being birthed by a flower is a pretty common story for a fairy. Even more fitting because flowers produce nectar and that's also what fairies are said to drink. And in Greek mythology, nectar is supposed to be a beverage that's name literally means "overcoming death," making it an immortality beverage. And since Nabu Malikata likely came from the era of the unified civilization and the unified civilization is based on ancient Greece we confidently say that this nectar reference is pretty valid especially because it comes up later in Fontaine during the reign of the God-King, Remus. And Remus is based off of the Roman Empire and the lore around him says that nectar brings enlightenment, so wisdom. And if wisdom is memories and memories is life then it also makes sense
that this is an immortality beverage both in-game and in Greek mythology. So then it starts to make a bit more sense why so much of Nabu Malikata's flower power is centered around creating life. Her Jinn were born of flowers and wherever the Jinn slept, life flourished and whenever they woke, life withered. Nabu Malikata was the grandmother of the Pari as well and those little flower fairies were born of the Simurgh and the pure Amrita and turn into trees upon death. And the Amrita is what's left of Egeria and it could be likened to her ichor or her blood and, to no one's surprise, the Amrita is yet another divine elixir of immortality. But here's the twist: Egeria was created to be the new heart of the Primordial Sea by the Shade of Life so the Amrita connection there makes a little bit more sense since all life in Teyvat came from the Primordial Sea. If all life comes from it,
then it is another sort of elixir of life. And, in fact, if you water it down, it turns into sinthe which is also known as the "drink of joy" because it begets euphoria for the imbiber the same effect that Nabu Malikata was said to be able to impart on people perhaps through her pure waters. And, sure, this might sound like a bit of a stretch but sinthe is short for absinthe, which is a type of alcohol and when it comes to alchemy, alcohol is considered one of the universal solvents, also known as alkahest. In fact, in Lulian alchemy,
quintessence is a universal solvent distilled from wine—the fifth essence,
sometimes called the "aether." If we follow the Aranara logic, then memories bring life. Nabu Malikata brought forth life from her blood and the Fontainians had Primordial Seawater in their veins, implying it can be used in place of blood. And we know that if you drink blood, you net life. So if all life comes from the Primordial Sea and all life returns to Irminsul, the tree of memories and memories are life then that Primordial Seawater must be in the Ley Lines because those are the roots of Irminsul. And from there, perhaps we
can create a trifecta of life-based elixirs. Ley Line juice can be nectar Primordial Seawater is absinthe and the forbidden knowledge might be wine since it comes from the depths of the Abyss and according to "The Drunkard's Tale,"
wine and the abyss are related. The idea of pure water and wine being related to alcohol and alkahest is also supported by the blessings of Oceanids. These faceless descendants of the angels —born of pure water— have the ability to turn water into alcohol and they can bless mortals with this ability as well. This is something we learned
in the dialogues of the Desert Sages weapon. It says that a person had been blessed by an Oceanid so that any liquid that passed through his hands would transform itself into an exquisite wine. Now, Diona seems to possess
a similar blessing from Callirhoe. Although this one doesn't explicitly turn water into wine the actual blessing found
in Diona's fifth Character Story says: “may your cup always run over
with the sweet wine of celebration." And there's also another mention of this phenomenon (in relation to alchemy this time)
during the Alchemical Ascension event conveniently said by Venti. What's funny is that in Genshin, Alkahest is actually the Ascension Material for the Cinnabar Spindle and cinnabar is a reference to the rubedo stage of alchemy which is usually considered the final or complete stage. And wouldn't you know it, the red reishi mushrooms are also referred to as the cinnabar mushrooms and possess the exact
same meaning: completion, immortality. But wait a second. If you were to combine this
alcohol alkahest and a cinnabar mushroom you might have something along the lines of... I don't know, absinthe and a mushroom? Which is the recipe for Kaeya's Fruity Skewers: the chicken and mushroom skewers soaked in Death in the Afternoon, a drink made with absinthe. And lest we forget that the water Chlothar used to water his strange mushroom had to be drawn in the early afternoon,
and it was used to water the dead ㅡDeath in the Afternoon. And this all feels a bit more conspiratorial when you realize that the Eucharist ritual involves dipping your bread or wafer into your wine. And seeing how the, quote, “bread” from heaven a.k.a manna has been thought to be the desert truffle which is a mushroom well, this Fruity Skewer suddenly gets a whole lot stranger especially when it keeps coming up in weird World Quests seemingly at random. It was mentioned no less
than twice in the Narzissenkreuz Questline a story all about dissolving people and their memories and it gets mentioned again in the dialogue with Xamaran when Paimon suggests eating the big guy. And absinthe has this fun little nickname, the green fairy and it doesn't escape me how
coincidental it is that I just made a theory about how Venti is a fragment of Istaroth who is a god of death when he's literally a drunken, green fairy. Now, I'm gonna level with you. Originally, this was where my notes ended. Well, plus a few fun facts that I haven't really gotten to yet. But, when fleshing out
this script, this was the moment when I had a small epiphany about Paimon. ‘Cause see, Paimon has all of the hallmarks of a Eucharist sacramental bread which means that emergency food is lore now. I really thought the emergency food
thing was an overplayed joke but I'm really not so sure anymore. And there are a few reasons for that. First off, Paimon is often
referred to as a pixie fairy, elf, Seelie and even a "Strange Fae-shaped Emergency Sustenance." That last one comes from Fischl's Vision story and I might be imagining things,
but Xamaran made this comment about Paimon eating so many mushrooms that she'd be all mushroom and no Paimon. And then immediately I read a line where Aranaga called her a white mushroom. Now, fungi in Genshin show an incredible amount of mimesis. It's like their whole thing, you know? They mimic other species. That's the whole lore behind the Jadeplume Terrorshroom. So, thinking about Paimon as a mushroom in the shape of a Seelie is interesting except I'm not sure that it's meant to be taken literally. ‘Cause remember, earlier we talked about how mushrooms are likened to sacramental bread so she could be a mushroom allegorically meaning her flesh is meant to be consumed as a sacrament. But what's creepy is that she might already be consecrated and just waiting for the sacrament. You see, one of the telltale
features of the Consecrated Beasts is this bone-like armor that grows on their exterior. It's even talked about in their descriptions and before anyone points out
that Oceanids have this bone armor too well, Oceanids are said to be
Egeria’s familiars born of her tears and given how similar the tiny Oceanids are to the Pari who were also born of her
(well, partially, anyway,) this kinda checks out. But Egeria took over control
of the Primordial Sea from Neuvillette so it makes me wonder if
the Oceanids aren't similar to the Pari. Instead of being born by mixing Nabu Malikata's Simurgh with Egeria's Amrita they could have been born of
Egeria’s power and Neuvillette's remains. Egeria was said to feel
great sympathy for the dragons after all and the same text that says this also has the line: “the lizard bones turned to mud from which swans emerged” which could allegorically refer
to Neuvillette losing his proper form and Oceanids (who are very bird-like) emerging from those remains
much like the Pari from the Amrita. Of course, this is just speculation but it feels kind of reasonable in context. And there are a few other weird interactions with regards to her as food that are not played as a joke. A guy named Tu in the Chasm has
this conversation that you can unlock (and I don't have footage for it, sorry) but the conversation is really distressing in the context of the Eucharist and Paimon ‘cause he says: “lemme tell you something. Rex Lapis' Exuvia has actually transformed into some blond-haired young man. And with another part of his adeptal powers he turned into some sort of adeptal fruit that can get angry and even sneeze.” The adeptal fruit here is Paimon,
and if you ask him about it, he says: “that's right. They say that this adeptal fruit was created from the very essence of the adeptal energies of heaven and earth themselves. If a mortal were to eat it,
they would be granted great longevity and power enough to fell a bull in a single punch." Granted longevity and power? What? You mean, like, an abyssling? Or a Consecrated Beast? Or, like, consuming a reishi
mushroom? This fruiting body of the fungi? And it doesn't help that the Traveler can identify Paimon as this adeptal fruit either. At this point, I kinda wondered if my imagination was just, like, running away from me but then my lore buddy, Cristal Marie, pointed out that in Abramelin magic, the demon Paimon is considered a sacrificial lamb or maybe it's better called as a scapegoat; a sacrificial goat. I learned this at the same time that I learned that the Persian version of the name Paimon is Peyman which is a name that refers to (and I'm not making this up) the covenant with God, like
the original one God made with the Hebrews that was sealed in the blood of animals and like the second one that Jesus made with God that's remembered through
the Eucharist sacrament with the wine. Now, I've seen theories pitched by multiple people on Discord, and Reddit, and YouTube, and stuff that all think Paimon is the Traveler's Vision. I don't think this is the case literally but I also don't think it's not the case. Like, I don't think that's too far from the truth. The flavor text for the Traveler's Talent descriptions always include Paimon, which is kinda weird. Take the Anemo skill, for example, where it says: “you discussed the way to grasp
the formless wind with Paimon" or the Dendro burst where you say: “you and Paimon studied
the sounds of plants that sprout after rain." And this happens for all talents. Paimon's in all of them, but why would you include her? What does she contribute to this? And the answer lies with Xamaran. Okay, so, we know that Xamaran is from Sumeru but we can also assume that they were around during the time of Deshret’s reign since that's the point in history where desert and rainforest would exist simultaneously and Xamaran references both. And sure, she could be something that's much more recent but she has this line where she says: “she knows many legged ones who make no use of their feet. Yet Xamaran knows not any Paimon”. And the only thing in Sumeru that really fits this
description is either Aranara or the Jinn. And I'm inclined to say Jinn here because the Jinn can float but are legged and exhibit
many of the same fairy traits as Paimon like the sound of bells and their mischievous nature. So, I think the implication here is that Paimon is Jinn-shaped (‘cause you remember that whole fae-shaped thing, right?) Well, Deshret was the king of the Jinn and that's enough to make him a reference to King Solomon and King Solomon controlled
the Jinn via a ring that he was given by God. Now, do you remember how he said
there was another Shahmaran folktale? One that doesn't involve
Shahmaran being eaten? The king version? Well, the king version of the tale is quite different from the queen version. This tale is all about a kind but very poor boy who takes in stray animals and shares his bread with them. One of the animals that he saves
is a lizard who is the child of the Shahmaran and in thanks for saving his child the serpent king gifts the boy a wish-fulfilling ring which will grant the boy anything he wants as long as he recites a prayer, which goes something like: “Oh ring, I ask of you, and you ask
of the Lord of Heaven and Earth” followed by his wish. It's a ring that called upon the power of god, the lord of heaven. We're gonna come back to this. So, the boy uses the ring to marry
a princess, and then he becomes a good king until a thief steals the ring and the king is left without his princess, ring, and palace. His animal friends then work together
to retrieve the ring for the king and when he gets it back, everything goes back to normal. But, let that sink in for a second. A ring given from god that makes one king? I mean, that sounds a bit like Solomon's Ring. Even more so when you remember that the demon Asmodeus stole the ring from Solomon to rule the world in his place. Without his ring, Solomon was just a normal man but one day, the ring fell from heaven into the sea where it was eaten by a fish and this fish was caught and given unknowingly to Solomon who ate it, and recovered his ring. And that allowed him
to reclaim his throne and defeat Asmodeus. So, uh... the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles is named Asmodei in the game files which is another name for Asmodeus! And we, the Traveler, fished Paimon out of the sea. And I have made several theories as to the Traveler's
relationship with Deshret (who is Solomon) but the two that matter here are Liloupar's testimony
that the Traveler reminds her of her master (who is Deshret) and that the Traveler claims to be an exiled prince which we can now compare to Xamaran
who also claims to know the Traveler and the Traveler can even say that they know Xamaran as well! And remember, this is a Sumeru mushroom,
likely from Deshret's era. She would likely know Deshret. And I would also like to point out that the Heavenly Father in Genshin is actually the Dragon King Nibelung; that is what he's called in Chinese
in Neuvillette's Character Stories. So, you've got a ring from the Heavenly Father, Nibelung that grants wishes and makes you king of the world and that's literally the plot of the Ring cycle which Genshin has drawn heavy inspiration from especially with regards to Khaenri'ah. And now, Kaeya's Chicken-n-Mushroom Skewers look really, really, really suspicious,
as if they weren't enough already. So, you eat the fish, get the ring, make a wish, and rule the world and if Paimon is Seelie-shaped,
and Seelies are shaped like sea slugs then she might not be a fish, but some kind of aquatic life. And, did you know that the symbol of Jesus is the zodiac Pisces? The symbol of the two fish? And lest we forget that Jesus has his own fish symbol the literal Jesus fish, the ichthys. And what was it that Jesus was again? Ah, right. He was a sacrifice the reason for the Eucharist rites. And we may have fished Paimon out of the sea but Paimon also might be the metaphorical bait
at the end of the fish hook. Consider how Canotila called Paimon a balloon with a string going up into the sky. But if you think about that more literally it sounds a bit more like a hook at the end of the fishing line. Does that mean that Celestia
is trying to get the Traveler to bite? And I also wanna point out that fairy rings are mushrooms that grow in a ring said to be portals to the other world and are also called witches' rings
because witches dance around them and if Xamaran is a name for a serpent, or rather a snake then suddenly Dainsleif is looking mighty suspicious because his Constellation is a snake ring and he was found by a fairy while clutching a ring. And if that's not enough Paimon gets called every synonym of "child" under the sun but the one that stands out to me the most is "hatchling" because both Xamaran and Tsumi
(a Vassal of a snake god) call her that. And it bothers me,
because she's also been called a "pigeon adeptus" and pigeons are doves and when I think of Deshret and doves,
I think of the chemical marriage because that's the alchemical marriage of the red king and the white queen which is facilitated by a dove a hatchling. And if that's Paimon, and Paimon is a ring then the whole facilitating thing is a wedding ring, isn't it? And no, I don't mean like a literal one. Deshret didn't literally marry the Goddess of Flowers. This is an alchemical marriage. It's science-y. But Deshret here is obviously the red king because he's the Scarlet King, so... you know. But the Goddess of Flowers must be the white queen because she's associated with the silver moon. It's an alchemical metaphor and this alchemical union of these two resulted in the acquisition of forbidden knowledge which must be wine
because it comes from the depths of the Abyss and "what you call wine, we call the Abyss." But the Traveler and the sibling are also called "the Abyss" by Chlothar Alberich, but- Actually, you know who else keeps getting called a child despite being hundreds, or even thousands of years old? The Traveler. Throughout the whole game, there's another ongoing gag just like the Paimon emergency food one. Whenever there's alcohol present someone will inevitably say something like "the Traveler isn't old enough to drink" or some variations thereof. But in the Eucharist context this simply means that the Traveler hasn't come of age yet. So, here's the thing: when it comes to the Catholic Church (which I'm gonna use as an example because there are too many variations among Christian denominations to reasonably cover here) there are seven sacramental rites,
of which three are mandatory. These rites are: baptism, confirmation, and communion. The baptismal rite is more of an initiation ceremony a way to introduce someone to the Catholic faith. Confirmation is the rite to seal the deal or rather to enter a covenant
with God and to become a witness of the faith. And performing the communion shows one's willingness to commune with God. So, theoretically, if the Traveler is considered a witness then they have undergone confirmation perhaps by touching the Statues of Seven. Which means that communion is next. Expression of one's willingness to participate. Now, communion is basically the Eucharist rite but most of the times, when someone says communion they're specifically referring to the first communion which is the first time
someone participates in the Eucharist rite. This rite is generally performed by people as young as seven or as old as sixteen,
and it is generally considered a rite of passage and a mark that one has come of age. Not of drinking age, though but given that wine
is used in communion, as this is the Eucharist rite I think the reference kind of holds here. The Traveler hasn't come of age and therefore isn't ready
to consume any wine... or, perhaps, Paimon. And, look, I don't think
we're actually going to eat Paimon, like, straight up but I do think it's possible
that we're supposed to either fuse with her absorb her, or absorb some aspect of her in order to complete our ascension. If she is similar to the dove that I mentioned above in the chemical marriage of alchemy then she is the catalyst, the representation of a covenant something necessary to finish the job. And since the Traveler is prophesized to ascend to the seat of god in the end... Well... I mean, that's it then, isn't it? I'm tired. I think I wrote, like, five drafts for this? Like, originally I had a whole section on butterflies that I had to cut because it didn't fit anywhere so, maybe they'll get their own video soon where I just talk about butterflies, and Seelies and why every non-human in Genshin is definitely a fairy and then, you know,
what different types they are. That sounds like fun. Anywho, I've got one more bit of lore for you while we thank our tasty little channel members, mmh! Now, did you know that the most likely origin for the concept of pixie dust being fairy magic comes from the Sandman, the sleep fairy? Well, it's true! Well, most likely true. His whole thing was about
sprinkling special little sand into your eyes to help you sleep and give you sweet dreams and it was a tale used to explain the little eye crusties you get when you wake up. What I find really funny about this, though is that Deshret is the sand king and he had the Golden Slumber, or the Golden Dream which kind of makes him the Sandman? The god of sandy sleep? Which is also kind of sus because, as Aranaga says "dreams exist because there are memories and where there are memories there is life." Which, again, makes me wonder
what the heck he was doing with all of this. But also, the reason I was doing
butterflies in this script, originally is because pixie dust might also be a reference to the dust that comes off of butterflies wings since butterflies are
still closely related to the European fae but... uh, obviously we didn't get that far. Anyway, that's all from me for today. Let me know what you guys think about this new meaning to the term "emergency food." I'm really curious to hear if this is actually gonna change how anyone feels about seeing the words "emergency food" in, like, future quests and stuff. But, special thanks to my channel members for supporting my thinly veiled excuse to moonlight as an ethnomycologist and another thanks to Opera GX for sponsoring this video! And a final thanks to you for watching. Take care of yourselves out there- oh and leave me your favorite mushroom recipe. I'm- I'm collecting them. No reason, just, uh... bye!
