hi it's me Roozevelt. Sooo I have a bit of a tinfoil
hat theory.I think time in Teyvat is... a little weird. like, we have all these chaotic time spaces,
a mysterious goddess of time and moments, all topped off with confusing memory alterations and
a not-so-clear timeline. And now there's reignited interest in samsaras (and potentially time loops)
with a note outside of the Narzissenkreuz Tower. Fortunately with patch 4.4 and Chenyu Vale, we have
received new TIME LORE! And that's found in a little Fontaine Bookshop with the book series "Time Trekker."
no no no no no please don't go! please hear me out. Listen, it's like my brand. I love books
and I love reading! [Flashback] I'm Roozevelt, I'm 19, and I never learned how to read [end Flashback] so Time Trekker is a
story that involves, well. time travel. Basically the main character travels to different periods
to solve riddles, only to find out that he set up the riddles for himself from the future. So
it has a very specific kind of time travel, but one that brings up a question about time: How
changeable is the past? Or for that matter, a future that has already been prophesied? After I've
summarized the book, I'm going to make the argument that the book has an obvious message about fate,
but has a more hidden meaning about free will. so let's Trek on to the story, then. The series
starts out with an unnamed narrator observing some high-class society meeting set in modern-ish
Fontaine. They're discussing High Society things including academics and philosophy that they don't
understand, and how bored they are. One lady, Aviva Nenonen, is opining about how all of the world
has already been conquered, so there's nothing left for man to explore. But then one member of
the group, Neven Ciric, pipes up. He says that she is neglecting the one area we haven't conquered:
time itself. And Ciric makes the argument that you cannot separate time and space, so therefore time
itself is a space that can be conquered. After this discussion, Ciric announces that he will have a
time machine made and ready in 2 months. Fast forward and there's another meeting for Ciric to
show off his time machine... and Ciric looks older than he should. Ciric simply presents a tiny,
exquisitely-crafted model of a whale airship. He is questioned and almost ridiculed about it, but
Ciric proclaims this is just a projection of his time machine, and in these two months, Ciric used
the machine. The narrator then relays his story. Ciric went back in time to the Remurian Empire
where he witnessed the massive scale of the architecture and Remus's golems. Ciric encounters a
native, Aidia Anavana, who for some reason believes his extraordinary situation. After some questioning
Aidia reveals to him a stone slate with a riddle. This riddle is not written in Remurian but modern
script. Ciric eventually finds that the answer to this riddle is a date in the future he must
input into his time machine. He bids farewell to his Remurian friend and departs. In this new time, he
finds another riddle revealing another date. This continues in other time periods with increasing
complexity. He eventually gets to the point where the riddle gives him an answer of 0: "Moment Zero."
There he witnesses a primal sea and red skies dotted with blurry stars. He's shocked to see
the Palais Mermonia beneath the waves, and he also finds a person waiting for him... someone who looks just
like him. They have a chat where Ciric asks this reflection: "You created these riddles?" Almost as if
reflecting his words, this Other-Ciric responds: "You created these riddles." so Ciric asks if zero is the
answer to the big riddle of time. To summarize what Other-Ciric says: "zero is not an answer but another
mystery. The answer to time's riddle is likened to a mirror: when two mirrors face each other, time is
the infinite reflection of light therein. As you look at the gap between the two mirrors, all beams
of light fall along the same plane. Everything must infinitely recur, for this is the nature of a
mirror. There is no past or future. for the past is the future. The Palais Mermonia was always sunk before
it was built... and that's why you cannot conquer time." In fear, Ciric pulls out a gun and shoots
this doppelganger, and thus concludes his tale. The room is left dumb-struck. Ciric says that we
can choose to believe him or not, but as he leaves, he says: "My Future Self awaits a riddle that I
must set for him." So the book ends on a rather dark, mind-bendy note. But before we get into any
big brain topics on actual time travel, I wanted to point out some Fun References! At the start,
Lady Nenonen quotes a king named Argeadai. This seems to be a reference to the Argead Dynasty
of ancient Greece, which included Alexander the Great. What she says seems to be referencing this
one quote about Alexander weeping because he had nothing else to conquer... but like, that's not a real
historical quote? uh that's something Hans Gruber said in the original 1988 Die Hard movie. Although
I guess if you're a bunch of pretentious bourgeoisie, it'd be pretty in character to confuse a Bruce
Willis movie with Plutarch. [Laugh Track] Hilarious! So another cool reference: nearly all the names in the book
are palindromes, like Nevven Ciric, meaning they read the same backwards and forwards. Interestingly,
the stone slate riddles Ciric solves are also palindromic, and arranged in a square. This makes
me think this is referring to the Sator Square, which is a widespread cryptogram that's thousands
of years old, whose meaning is still a mystery. The text of the Sator Square actually appears in-game
in the Beastly Rifts. BUUUT the Square's palindromic nature also inspired another piece of time travel
media: the movie Tenet! Boy, if I had a penny every time Hoyoverse did something that made me think of a
Christopher Nolan movie, I'd have a little bit of sense/cents [Laugh Track]. The biggest reference though comes towards
the end of the story, when Other-Ciric monologues about the nature of time. It explicitly draws
from "The Garden of Forking Paths," which is a mid-20th century short story by Jorge Luis Borges that
explores Free Will and the infinite possibilities of the future. But Time Trekker outwardly rejects
its philosophical underpinnings by asserting that there is no past nor future, and as
such, Free Will is as much an illusion as time is. Any and every tragic Destiny cannot be
avoided, and we are all ultimately prisoners of fate. [Laugh Track, Seinfeld Theme] Wow, okay, that existential crisis really snuck
up on us. This last part was just to give a preview that Time Trekker may actually have a very layered
meaning. Yes, it is about time travel, but here's the thing: although the machinations of time are the
foundation, the real significance lies within the implications for fate and destiny. Also, a quick
speculation disclaimer, and also a heads-up for the podcast-style listeners - the next sections are
going to have a few visuals that might be helpful for illustrating some concepts. Time Trekker has
what you would call a "self-consistent" timeline. Now, most of the traveling Ciric does is bounce
around different periods to solve riddles. But at the end of the book, Ciric says that he must leave
to go set up the riddles... because it's implied that Ciric set them up for himself. All of his time
travel was already integrated into the past. In this type of timeline, you can't change anything,
because everything, including the time travel itself, has already happened. The past is "fixed." I
do think this is similar to what happened during Ei's second story quest where we witness her planting the
Sacred Sakura 500 years ago. Miko said it was always there to her, and it was certainly there when
we arrived in Inazuma. I digress, but I think this goes even deeper. Towards the end, Other-Ciric says
that there is no past or future. His subsequent description of time seems to invoke the "Block Universe."
In our perception of time, the past is behind us, the future is unknown, and the present is
now. But according to the Block Universe, the past, present, and future exist simultaneously. There is
technically no past or future because the present is arbitrary, according to the theory of relativity.
This is perhaps why Ciric refers to his past self as his future self - because past and future is a
matter of perspective. Since the past and future are just as real as the present, the Block Model
implies that not only is the past "fixed," but also the future. Space-time is an unchanging block,
like a movie reel. We just only perceive the cross-section we call "now," a singular frame in the
movie. This is why Other-Ciric says that the past is the future, and is what Other-Ciric means when
he said that the Palais Mermonia sank long before it was ever built. This also applies to the larger
world-building of Genshin with fate and destiny. For example, how Nicole called the prophecy the
"history of the future," and also how Dainsleif said that there are no coincidences in the world.
Everything is the fruit of seeds planted long ago. This block contains all the Light Between the Two
Mirrors, or, you can think of it as "fate." It's not a coincidence, then, the clear parallels between
Time Trekker and Furina, Focalors, and the prophecy. For example, Neven sees a sunken Palais Mermonia, and
Other-Ciric explains that the palace had sunk long before it was ever built, just like Fontaine
was prophesied to be flooded. And Ciric seeing his reflection in Other-Ciric, and the analogy of
mirrors, is very evocative of the image of Furina and Focalors in the mirror. Also, Furina's Salon
Solitaire comes from another unnamed book that also features time travel. And finally, there's the stone
slates, with Fontaine's slates revealing a prophecy, and the books holding a riddle. But the events in
in Fontaine suggests something interesting. The prophecy happened exactly as said - or at least, the
version on the stone slates did. However, the block model would also necessitate that EVERYTHING
that Focalors did was going to happen anyway. Like, that Neuvillette regaining his authority was
also fated. But given Focalors' effort to deceive the Heavenly Principles, and the heavy emphasis
on Nicole's words suggesting there are loopholes, this does not seem likely. So, this is all to say, Time Trekker
seems to imply a "fixed" timeline or a Block Universe where you can't change anything and have
no Free Will. And this model may superficially work with Teyvat... until it doesn't but. I think
in its presentation, Time Trekker is also trying to imply that things may not be as they appear. And
this is where The Garden of Forking Paths comes to play. And thanks so much to to my friend Sabre
for pointing this out and pushing me into the LORE HOLE. The Garden of Forking Paths is a short story
by Jorge Luis Borges, a renowned Latin American author of the 20th century. The story is a spy
thriller with no time travel... but, in its themes, it rejects the notion of a "fixed" timeline or Block Universe.
Within the story, there is another frame story of an author who was attempting to write
the grandest "Choose Your Own Adventure" book of all time. This "Choose Your Own Adventure" was
intended to be a massive book where every decision infinitely forked off into new chapters.
In a way, it was intended to be a continuously growing labyrinth of different choices and paths
and opportunities. This ends up being the theme of Forking Paths: we have the agency and free will to
make decisions that branch off into new timelines. Fate does not direct or guide your every move. As
a side note, this story may have been a precursor to the "many-worlds interpretation" of quantum
mechanics, aka the Multiverse! But the point here is the emphasis on free will. Here, Borges presents
time as an expanding labyrinth of opportunity versus an unchanging block of fate. Time Trekker's
reference to this short story is *incredibly* subtle. Other-Ciric's monologue about time explicitly mirrors,
no pun intended, an excerpt about the forking paths, and it inverts, completely changing its meaning.
In Time Trekker, zero is not an answer, but another mystery. Diverging, converging, and parallel lights
form the illusion of time where all light falls along the same plane and doesn't escape. There
is no past or future, and the future is the past, because these are arbitrary terms talking talking
about the same thing, just seen from different perspectives. Contrast this with Forking Paths: the
explanation is obvious, no mysteries here. Diverging, converging, and parallel times create a web of
time that embraces *every* possibility. It doesn't trap and contain just one, and exclude all others.
Time is forever dividing itself toward innumerable futures. So I hope I've begun to make it clear
how the narrative style is so similar, yet the messages are completely opposite. It's a confined
Block versus an unconfined Labyrinth. I find this choice to be incredibly interesting. Like, why go
through the effort of making a reference, just to reject its message so strongly? Well, I think this
may be a bit of a riddle in itself. One of the characters in Forking Paths even says a riddles:
"The rules of the game [the riddle] forbid the use of the word itself. To eliminate a word completely,
to refer to it by means of inept phrases and obvious paraphrases, is perhaps the best way of
drawing attention to it." So I think by mimicking and inverting the meaning of the text, Time Trekker
may actually be doing just that: hiding the truth in plain sight. And perhaps the truth is that the
the future is more flexible than we're lead on to believe. I think we've had hints of this elsewhere
as well. In another book, Vera's Melancholy, which I've made a video about, one of the main characters
says: "the past cannot change the future, for the predetermined rules of equilibrium are slightly
more powerful than me. But the future, with its infinite possibilities, could save the world."
This sentiment of "the future saves the past" is echoed in Dainsleif's character introduction, which
has the exact same lines in the original Chinese as Vera's Melancholy. But for whatever reason Dainsleif's introduction was translated differently. But there's another really important theme in
The Garden of Forking Paths that's a little harder to catch: it's that despite free will, this
intricate web of possibilities is still limited in many ways. The main character, WHO IS A SPY, says
that in this huge web made by different decisions, in most paths, he would have been caught anyway.
That is, he felt destined to be hunted down as a spy. Borges refers to this as the "convergence" of
timelines. While there is flexibility in choices there is sometimes an inescapability of destiny.
But at the same time, the implication here is that different decisions create different different
timelines, and thus they open up different future possibilities. And I personally think this is
what both Nicole and Dainsleif refer to when they say "hidden corners" or more simply what the gods
cannot see: different choices create different opportunities, even if they arrive at the same
final point. These different opportunities created by the different forking paths may be
where changes can really happen. So now we we've finally reached fun speculation. But think of it
this way: perhaps time and fate in Teyvat is an illusion, a hoax just as fake as the sky itself,
but the reality may be that the future has way more than a single path. And "fate" only seems
real due to these convergences of timelines. Because remember, a prophecy is only the future
from the perception of the gods. Perhaps the gods see these convergences and the path sometimes
doesn't matter. Let me tie this together with an analogy: imagine the Block Universe as a script
for a play. As a performer, you follow the script, the same way that fate dictates your past and
future. But imagine you want to change something about the story. You're not the script writer or
director, but you happen to know of the Forking Paths. So during the play you improvise a little
bit. The director may notice but they won't care as long as you bring it back to the plot. Imagine
that these changes may have seemed inconsequential, but the play is more successful, and you even had
some audience interaction, and now the audience goes home with a gift. If that sounds familiar,
it's because this was Kaeya's hangout. Boy, I hope this isn't foreshadowing for something crazy I'm
going to say later! But there's one last topic I want to address, and it's the concept of time
is a flat circle, and history repeats itself. Ciric says a few other interesting things in his
monologue: "everything must recur because that is the nature of a mirror." Even the imagery of light
infinitely bouncing between the mirrors seems to evoke repeating patterns. Going back to Borges, he
was an author interested in topics such as time, dreams, mathematics, and philosophy, and he also
explored the concept of circular or repeating time. For example, in his "The Doctrine of Cycles"
and "Circular Time" or even "The Immortal." But what emerges here is a discussion surrounding the
Eternal Return. Eternal Return is a concept I've talked about before, and it's foundational to the
works of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. More specifically there are SO many references to Nietzsche and Eternal
Return in the game already. Basically Eternal Return asserts that time is infinite, but matter
is finite, so history will inevitably repeat itself. Infinite time allows for infinite recombinations
and possibilities, but if those combinations are limited, they repeat themselves. I should clarify
now that while "block universe" and the "many worlds" implied by Forking Paths have more of a history
in actually being used to explain the machinery of the IRL Universe, Eternal Return is strictly
philosophical. Nietzsche was less focused on if the basis was true, and more the existential question
it posed: would you have an Amore Fati, or a love of fate, knowing everything will just happen again
and again? This thinking is also in line with what we're given in Genshin. The IRL term samsara is a
spiritual cycling, and the Sumeru Archon Quest went out of its way to specify that it wasn't a Time
Loop, but a dream playing over and over. And when the Narzissenkreuz note describes samsaras, it's very specific
about referring to spiritual evolution. So while this is a clear divergence from the topic of
physical time, Eternal Return still addresses the personal questions of fate versus free will.
... and this brings us back to Kaeya. Wait, so that was foreshadowing! In his hangout, Kaeya repeats the
phrase "Yes, so must it be!" multiple times. it's in his thoughts, his words, the quest titles, and so on.
I mentioned in my Kaeya hangout video that there seemed to be some themes of Eternal Return, like in
his recognition that history repeats itself. But I didn't know at the time that this is actually an
explicit reference to to Milan Kundera's novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." In Unbearable
Lightness, the main character reaffirms every decision he makes by glibly attributing it to fate.
With every decision, he says, "Es muß sein!" This itself is a reference to Beethoven's string quartet number
16, where there's a call-and-response of "Muß es sein?" and "Es muß sein!" which translates to "Must it be so?"
and "So must it be!" ... the exact same words that Kaeya repeats. This is an incredibly revealing reference
because Unbearable Lightness explicitly rejects the idea of Eternal Return. So the book posits
that instead of worrying about Eternal Return, or fate in general, we need to YOLO. Like literally.
Me and all my homies hate destiny. There's only one life to live, and we got to live it to the
fullest. And here is when we can tie everything together. So Kaeya compares fate to a script, like
one written by an Akademiya student, which implies something like a Block Universe. Because there is
no past present or future in the script, it just all exists, it's all there, it is what it is. But
he also says we can improvise a little bit, which to me, sounds like a nod to the Forking Paths. But
from a philosophical angle, Kaeya is also rejecting the very notion of fate and destiny. Kaeya also would
like to defy fate. What remains to be seen, though, are those inescapable destinies, the convergence of
timelines, and which of the forking paths Kaeya will choose. So I want to close out this video by
generally going over what the implications of all all these time shenanigans are for the story.
In terms of the future, fate will be inescapable at some points; however the Forking Paths give wiggle
room to open new possibilities before convergence to a shared destiny. These are the hidden corners,
or loopholes, Nicole refers to. I think? There may also be the possibility for time travel back
into the past, particularly with the Travail Trailer referencing Khaenri'ah as Chapter (???). I think
if that does happen, then whatever happens is already baked into the timeline. Nothing changes,
and we simply don't notice because it's already happened. Alternatively, there may be some wiggle
room here too. The Forking Paths never addresses the possibility of changing the past, but the
implication would be a creation of an entirely new timeline, or a new world... which when you think
about it, may be within the purview of a Descender. One who can create, sustain, protect, or destroy an
entire world. I won't speculate too much on that and I'll just leave that to you guys for your
own interpretation. Thank you all for watching. I also want to thank all those who helped
me create this video, because time travel is a doozy, including my friends Cole, Cristal Marie, Ashikai and many others. But in particular Sabre who helped me start all of this. Please like and
subscribe! Leave a comment with your own theories. I've been super busy with life so I haven't been
able to produce as much as I'd like, but thanks for sticking with me. But also ... have you checked
your smoke detector batteries recently? Okay bye [outro song about checking your smoke detector batteries]
