Rhinedottir’s goal to make a DESCENDER: Alchemy & the Cosmic Man (4.5 Genshin Impact Lore & Theory)

so 4.5 is just around the corner and it seems a little on the sparse side which is fine we can all take a little vacay before the next immense lore drop also they did announce their collab with the Discovery Channel so I'm personally excited for David atenor style documentaries with Cave's voice actor who would win in a fight 10 billion lions or the Sun how can they fight the sun they can do their best okay what about 10 trillion Lions mathematically the Sun would win but spiritually I think the Lions would win but we also have an Alchemy event coming up which is great timing because there's been a lingering question in my head for a few months now Alchemy was essential to conri and civilization as it was underground and had to create its own resources and the narciss Cs Ordo from Fontaine extensively studied conry and Alchemy but many narciss and C's notes outright say that conry and Alchemy was flawed it was out of order sloppy expedited so my burning question has been what exactly was wrong with conry and Alchemy I'll go ahead and spoil the punchline here nothing and honestly I think narciss and CS may have completely misunderstood conry and Alchemy and I think this misunderstanding informs a more significant question what exactly is rauter the great Alchemist and CER of cona up to because I think nart s and CZ and rauter were ultimately trying to do the same thing but with very different approaches I want to answer this question building on some existing theories by others and maybe even give a clear answer as to why the sibling isn't a descender intrigued yet so let me start off with some background to explain narciss and C's problem with conre and Alchemy historically Alchemy was an old practice of transformation like trying to turn lead into gold more broadly it was a branch of protoscience that attempted to understand the natural world before science was really a thing the primary motivation of alchemy was the magnum opus which was the process of creating a Transcendent substance from the ubiquitous and undifferentiated substance making up the universe this Transcendent substance could be symbolized by the philosopher stone or the elixir of life or even just a cure all medication there isn't a standard recipe of the magnum opus it depends on who you're referencing but the four critical stages are negredo the blackening albo the whitening citrinitas the yellowing and rubo the rening although after the 15th century this was often reduced to three steps with black white and red merging citrinitas with rubo the final step rubo is associated with the philosop Stone usually portrayed as a bright blood red as a protoscience Alchemy corresponds to real chemical processes which were not understood at the time for example using heat to turn calcium carbonate into Quick lime or kelks or combining Mercury with sulfur to create the red mineral Cinnabar but without a more concrete scientific basis it was a secret art that was inextricably linked with esoteric and spiritual practices or ties to the Divine for example Maria the prophet an early Alchemist who likely proposed those four steps attributed spiritual meaning to the number four one becomes two two becomes three and out of the third comes the one as the fourth here four represents a sacred Unity this is a very specific example but put a pin in it for now with the Advent of modern chemistry Alchemy didn't hold up too well but as recently as the past Century Alchemy reemerged as a metaphorical tool in Psychology that is we can study the architecture of the psyche by referring to early attempts to rationalize the natural world so to paint a picture of psychological change the beginning starts with negredo which is representative of inner chaos and suffering it ends when the Blackness disappears when Dawn arrives and a new day breaks albo but albo is an abstract and ideal state that cannot live or sustain itself it needs blood or the life force this is rubo or the redness of life with that the Opus is complete and fully realized so uh here's the thing about its application in genion though and some of you might have already picked up on it so I'll B is a creation of Rin daughter and he practices the Alchemy of cona called chemia when albo describes the process of chemia the steps are negredo albo rubo and then citrinitas the final two stages are swapped this is specifically a Conan Quirk multiple narciss and CS notes point this out there could be a simple explanation here historically IRL there was no real consensus about the exact recipe with many having more steps and rearranging the order of some smaller steps and more importantly citrinitas is often indistinct from rubo citrinitas and rbo describe the golden hour as the Sunrise turns from black to white to a mix of yellow and red but the emphasis on the reversal seems to imply something more important here's what I think is going on I think naris and CS took this too l literally despite narciss and C's emphasis on the spiritual and esoteric they missed some essential details details which made rein daughter the great Alchemist and chya a profound art so what are these details what difference does the order of citrinus really make the answer lies in a much less literal interpretation of alchemy Carl Yung a psychoanalyst of the 20th century is perhaps best known for his work on dreams and the unconscious in psychoanalysis Yung Incorporated Alchemy into his psychoanalysis as part of exploration into the unconscious to be clear he did not actually believe in the physical transformative ability of alchemy however he asserted that the symbolism of alchemy was a reflection of the unconscious psyche Yung has written a few variations on this everything unknown is filled with psychological projection it is as if the investigator's own psychic depths were mirrored in the darkness so in pre- science Society nature was a complete unknown and Alchemist projected their unconscious to comprehend the world yung's extensive dive into Alchemy as his student Marie von front said waiting through a humongous pile of Duke du looking for anything useful was motivated by the search for understanding the unconscious psyche as such the mag Opus became an emblem for psychological transformation to Yung to say the least he's written a lot about it in the integration of the personality Yung specifically addresses these final stages of citrinitas and rubo after albo there's the rening the red tincture that can turn base medals into silver or gold but the rening is not always the culmination of the procedure not at any rate when gold is the end in view you here He suggests that sat Trinitas can indeed be a final stage he goes on the philosopher stone is the most prevalent of all alchemistic conceptions and was conceived either as an instrument or as an absolute end in itself in the first case it may be the red powder or tincture but in the second case it is a thoroughly mystical being having Body Soul and Spirit and depicted as winged or hermaphroditic this winged being is a product of the classical magnum opus Rebus who is also equated with the Philosopher's child or the Philosopher's Stone Rebus starts off as Primo Materia the chaotic substance that makes up the universe and becomes its own being or self Rebus represents a perfect being who encapsulates and combines dualities for example the feminine and masculine Essence the Sun and the Moon Rebus is a Union of opposites as a quick disclaimer before I move on admittedly in his other works Yung has also disregarded citrinitas or combined it with rubo as well this passage is an outlier and thus the speculation and interpretation may be wildly wrong but regardless Yung is making a distinction here depending on the order the philosopher stone can be an instrument or complete in itself the instrument could make gold metal but if the gold is the end in view the gold is something entirely different and as I've tried to stress the significance lies within the symbolism to understand this there's two important aspects here the first important aspect to understand is the idea of opposites and their role in a process called individuation which is a core tenant and goal of analytical psychology there exists this duality of the conscious ious and unconscious its Persona are face to the world versus its shadow which is unseen the unconscious or Shadow is instinctive and drives a great deal of our Behavior the process of individuation refers to the integration or Union between the conscious and unconscious in order to become a whole being Yung calls this whole being the self this is similar to how Rebus the androgynous winged figure combines opposite because Yung saw Alchemy itself as a metaphor for individuation the second aspect involves the idea of archetypes archetypes are innate Universal and unconscious building blocks of the psyche they're manifested in patterns shared across cultures these are instinctive Tendencies to represent motifs for example the Virgin Mary is a conscious representation of the unconscious archetype of the mother representing a nurturing compassion Purity and giving life there are many archetypes and Yung thought that these archetypes can be used as personal guiding tools for the discovery of the self one such archetype is the cosmic man which itself represents the goal of the individuation process the cosmic man archetype actually represents a lot of things like both the beginning and the goal the seat of creation found in everyone pervasive in the universe the cosmic man is manifested in creation myths across the world this includes imir panu gomart perusia Adam cadmon and Adam and in many of these stories the body parts of the cosmic man become the universe itself side note if you've read the gensin web comic some of these names might sound familiar to you because ventti talks about three three of them creating a universe anyway because of the role of seeding life both Yung and his student Von France use primordial man interchangeably with Cosmic man Cosmic human or primordial human is more accurate though because of its androgynous nature combining feminine and masculine elements the cosmic or primordial human is completely individuated and whole it represents a fully integrated self notably yumian thought recognizes a quaternary structure of the cosmic man meaning the number four appears a lot in creation myths in fact Yung put a lot of thought into the unconscious attributes of the number four as a symbol for completeness and Perfection which is interesting given Maria the prophet's emphasis on the special meaning of the magnum opus having four steps and Yung saw this too his his interpretation was that one is a singular hole and two represents conflict and opposition three is the rejoining bond and four represents the new perfect hole because remember Yung saw Alchemy itself as a metaphor for individuation to tie all these points together Yung describes two different versions of the magnum opus where rubo is the final product the philosopher stone is an instrument where citrinitas is the final product the philosopher stone is a mystical being representing the individuated self it's not really that rubo and citrinitas are flipped as much as citrinitas is the end in view is completely different from citrinitas as an intermediate step furthermore through a yian lens this mystical being could be the cosmic or primordial human so to bring this back to genin I think the misund understanding by narciss ands lies here narciss ands has a strict classical idea of what Alchemy is the reality though is that there are different types depending on the end goal for example yes cona did use chia for practical and mundane reasons to make bread for example because they wouldn't have been able to grow wheat but raugh was also doing something different as well something more extraordinary consider this narciss ands says that citrinitas or yellow represents gold and Mortal Temptation yellow is bait the real goal is red the philosopher stone but in Chia citrinitas is when the meaning of the object being transmuted has finally been brought to light and it becomes gold itself revealing its true value see they're talking about two very different types of gold though when you contrast the the two you can draw parallels directly to yung's differentiation the philosopher stone as an instrument that can create gold versus a philosopher stone which is a more Transcendent gold in itself neither is wrong as it depends on the goal this is what narciss androits did not understand so what was Rin daughter trying to do with chemia then well if we follow yunan thought here she wanted to use alchemy to become or create a cosmic man or primordial human this is the gold philosopher stone wing it androgenous fully individuated associated with the number four and symbolic of creation and the universe this description may sound familiar a being who seated life used their body parts or maybe an eggshell to create a microcosm of the universe androgynous with wings and a crown also has primordial in its name un know someone like the primordial one and we can take this even further if we do assume the primordial one is the Heavenly principles yung's mystical being May more broadly represent a descender because a descender can create a world and has a will that can rival an entire world or Universe there is also a shared recurring theme of the number four the quaternary structure of the cosmic man the four stages of Alchemy or individuation and four descenders for samsara four shades of the primordial one it's no coincidence that gensin references the rule of three but it's more like the rule of 3 + 1 as we see on surumi island or during Arin yaka good Omens must occur three times for Good Fortune to truly descend and you must Forge past obstacles three times to succeed on the fourth Pimon even says says you know what this is garbage Pon still thinks it should be called the rule of War instead not to mention other minor references like the number four during the subzeru festival or sucrose's quadruple sized suneta I digress but let me continue putting together the story I think ultimately narciss and CZ and rinter had the same goal the creation of a descender but nard cisen CS failed outright because they misunderstood Ry daughter's chemia but there's no evidence to suggest that rinter succeeded either in fact Ry is blamed for the Conan cataclysm and both danne and venty express distrust of albo's chemia it could be that ryter messed up immensely in the greatest oopsy of all time and perhaps this epic fail was evidence to narciss androits that chya was flawed but that doesn't mean to say she didn't keep trying and maybe she still has a chance to succeed yet because albo represents the second stage of chema chalk is the Spotless soil and is used to make primordial man and this brings us to the primordial human project or perhaps the cosmic man project before I get into it I want to emphasize that these aren't really new ideas ashikai has discussed this and saber and Swan wrote an amazing and very detailed post with this very idea they came to this conclusion while diving into cabala where Adam cadmon is a primordial man so there is an immense deal of overlap here links in description so I basically want to present a yian perspective of the primordial human project the effort to create an artificial or synthetic descender let's start off with narciss and cro Renee calculated his world formula which predicted the end of the world and his Pursuit was all to save the world from this apocalypse narciss and cit's goal then was to dissolve everyone and use the holy blade of reason to condense a singular will that could survive the catastrophe and by doing this narciss ands would have a will to rival the world and become a descender in a note where Renee talks about descender status that it's not reserved for outworlders and can belong to those who have an immense will he quotes a phrase this phrase describes a process of rebirth and also narayana or primordial human taking this equivalence of the cosmic man primordial human and desender the note starts to make a lot more sense the primordial man and descender Status are both his goal because they are one in the same but of course his efforts failed now contrast this with something we learned in Shadows amid snowstorms sorry people who started playing in 2022 or later in the event story a doubleganger of albo attempts to Yeet real albo and replace him we learn that this susb was another one of rind daughter's Creations however he was a failure and was fed to Duren but he got it Duran stomach juice power up and was able to return albo in talking about this failure mentions the primordial human project this is literally all we know about this endgame so far but with the Yi and context of alchemy and the philosopher stone being the cosmic or primordial man this alchemical process of individuation is likely what rauter was aiming for the fact that sspo is the failure then implies that albo may then be the most successful product of Ry daughter's magnum opus consider this in his story Quest albo Compares himself to The Traveler quite a great deal even going to say that they are both born of chalk and different from the world of course albo is not a descender yet because the magnum opus is not yet Complete because perhaps this is alchemy that rinter cannot do herself by setting him off to find the truth of this world this is alchemy that has to do himself for himself and here in lies the difference between citrinitas and rubo as the final stage with rubo it's an instrument see in some ways you could interpret the holy blade of narciss Andro as a philosopher stone used as an instrument when we reconstruct the holy blade we get so close to a yian approach with combining the experiential substances of memory wish soul and Persona compare this with yunan thought which prescribes the integration of persona ego Shadow and the Ana animus to create the self I digress once again Renee describes the holy blade as having descender status itself but he still wanted to use it as a tool in contrast with citrinitas as the final stage albo himself is the philosopher stone coming into being and perhaps that is also why albo is afraid of losing control and destroying monstad the experiment failing during the most critical part so creating a descender seems to be Rin daughter's ambition of perfection this is the main idea I wanted to present but there's something else I wanted to explore a little bit albo is just one of Rin daughter's Creations I think his brothers also provide some interesting in things about the nature of alchemy as well as both the traveler and their sibling when we talk to ellus he recounts drifting in a cosmic Darkness cold and alone that is until his mother plucked him away from said Darkness this mother is heavily implied to be raugh and what elanus describes is the first stage of alchemy the starting material the chaotic Prima Materia first goes through Gro drawing from primordial forms within the chaos and the Darkness but even though ellus and Duren were given Life The Joy they felt was disconnected from reality they did not make it to the next stage albo which represents a purging and a whitening so ellus and Duren were both Abyssal dragons and the cosmic Darkness could be interpreted as the void realm or Abyss then this would mean the Abyss is the Prima Materia the undifferentiated chaos from which forms can be differentiated and then processed into a Transcendent substance this has interesting implications for a descender created via Alchemy as the cinear spindle describes separate the dust in the Flames with joy and extract the Exquisite from the crude for all in the universe comes from a single source and all things may be derived from a single thought this kind of implies Elbo was also sourced from this Abyssal Prima Materia but that's not surprising because he's the chalk Prince purified white ash from black soil there's something else that bothers me though albo Compares himself to traveler and this makes me wonder about the Traveler's true Origins additionally in his story Quest albo runs a lot of experiments on you and ends up with a vial of purple full sediment he says those born of Earth are bound by its imperfections but those born of chalk are free of impurities you and I are alike both composed of a substance that has yet to be fully defined taken together this lowkey highy reminds me of what the sinner said to our sibling you are like a flower born in sin yet pure spotless The Sinner went on to say become a Transcendent one so this is just me thinking out loud a lot of speculation here but I'm personally getting the vibe that there's a bit of a pipeline of originating from the abyss and through Alchemy becoming a descender but I'm going to leave those thoughts hanging because I don't actually have a real conclusion it's honestly just Vibes only but there is another angle I want to explore a little bit it's the comparison between traveler and albo and also descender and the cosmic or primordial human archetype I think it may be able to answer a very interesting question a question we've toiled over since the conclusion of the Stu archon Quest why is the sibling not a descender but traveler is I do think the base answer has to do with one having a will to rival a world but it doesn't really explain what's going on so let's dig into this using a yian lens the siblings are so similar that they are completely interchangeable yet at the same time they are opposite in distinct ways like in their preference for summer versus winter or in the masculine versus feminine and as twins they create a unit that is whole with totality and completeness now remember remember the cosmic man androgynous combining the masculine and feminine because the cosmic man represents the goal of individuation keep that at the Forefront of your mind as you ask yourself which of the twins desperately wants to reunite with their opposite half which twin pursues integration with the other half to recreate what was once whole who seeks individuation the descender does the traveler so I think this is why the traveler is a descender and The Sibling isn't because one is on the path to individuation and the other isn't I also think this is why traveler is a descender but why they aren't quite full power yet because I think it's more than just about collecting the elements it's ultimately about being reunited I want to close this out with a few thoughts I couldn't fit elsewhere largely because they're a little cracky first I think it's super hilarious how in the second Golden Apple archipelago playable fishal integrates with her Shadow you know undergoing individuation to unearth the true self and become a cosmic man because like real official from the MR n novels created Another Universe and founded paradise and you could argue is also a descender I've actually argued that so check that out for context second in thinking about this integration during individuation I was reminded of parallels between the traveler and their sibling to Farina and falor falor didn't create finina she just separated her humanity and Divinity from the original falor like a descender and one of this World perhaps so they are one in the same but opposite this may made me think about other dualities and twinning in game and it made me wonder Nita and Ruku Dada are never described as twins but they're still the same but totally not separated by time so I wonder if you can draw a slightly different comparison with traveler and The Sibling who together make a hole and may also be separated by time you are me in the next samsara as Ruka Dada said but once you've walked the path that I have you will understand the truth of this world said the sibling and finally rereading the narciss and C's note about citrinitas and rubo it honestly sounds like they think cono was just trying to make literal gold but instead Made bread which would be funny because making literal gold is Trivial because albo implies in a voice line that he can just make gold also fun fact you would actually need a star at least eight times more massive than our son to get a supernova which is how gold forms so albo is technically right about that anyway that's all for now thank you all for watching this was a long one and as many know I'm allergic to long videos but I obviously was enraptured by the Yung Deep dive please like comment and subscribe especially on this video uh I I just told you I'm allergic to long videos so I really went through the ringer for this so um yeah post a comment with your own theories I hope you are all doing well and have you checked your smoke detector batteries recently especially if you're doing Alchemy in your basement check them okay [Music] bye

Channel: roozevelt

Views: 23,676

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Id: UOGhdD5bY9c

Length: 30min 58sec (1858 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 10 2024