Hi guys I am Inotia King a youtuber, redditor and gamer who likes theorizing about the story. I actually cobbled together a list of some of my more important theories with respect to the game Genshin Impact and Star Rail that I have been basing all of my newer theories on. I'll be putting more of those up on Hive along with new stuff but if you're impatient I also archived all my theories here. I hope some of you guys are game theorists too. Let's try to figure out these great games together!
(This theory was originally put up on reddit. It's long and there's a ton of ground to cover so I've added a summary at the end.)
So I've talked about the structure and history of Teyvat a few times now. You guys know my opinion on who Phanes is, Celestia, the Sustainer, Archons, so on and so forth. I've also talked about the plans and goals of several factions in this world too. But I haven't really mentioned specifically what it all means. (unless you clicked on the "click here" link and watched everything) Well there may be a little more to it now with the new information we've gotten since I made them. Let's talk about it.
Ok so a quick summary of where things stand based on my theory: Phanes is essentially Genshin's version of the Will of the Honkai. Above it is the Hoyoverse entity the Imaginary Tree which is likely to be known in Genshin as Ananke the God of Inevitable Fate. On the opposite end and powering the Abyss Order is Ananke's opposite Chaos the God of the Void aka the Sea of Quanta. Beneath all of these unfathomable forces is "Teyvat" where a balance is being established through all sentient life. Under the management of Phanes and its shades in Celestia the Archons run their sections of the world and are meant to control them. Some of the people have access to elemental powers which is only a fraction of the element of Light possessed by Phanes. This Vision and the elementally pure Archons are part of the system established by Phanes known as the Heavenly Principles.
Part I: One Element To Rule Them All
I've been seeing a few theories going around now suggesting that light will be the eighth element. Mostly this boils down to the idea of duality between the "light" Celestia side vs the "dark" Abyss side. Now of course that is normally the case in most RPGs. I wouldn't call Genshin a normal RPG though. With the level of research miHoYo's put into it I don't think your typical good vs evil plot will fit the MO.
I've also seen a couple of quick theories suggesting that Light in Genshin will be the same as the Imaginary element in Honkai. Imaginary was the final type released in Honkai and is opposed by Quantum. But that's where we run into issue with theories like this. As stated my theory believes that there will be an Imaginary Tree and Sea of Quanta in Genshin likely named alongside the same theme as Phanes to be Ananke and Chaos respectively. Ananke would therefore have the Imaginary element and Chaos the Quantum. Phanes is a step below this and just from that I hope it becomes clear.
So again the links are all up there but what's going on is that Light in Genshin will turn out to be something of a facsimile. Light is just like the light defined by physics. It's all the wavelengths of color packed together. Split them up and you get a rainbow of seven different colors: ROY G BIV. Or transposed to Genshin you get the seven elements.
On the other hand Imaginary is creation itself as its representative god Ananke, the Goddess of Inevitable Fate is herself, a spontaneous creation out of a sea of nothing.
Part II: Trial and Error (much error)
This is why I went on and on about the plans each current faction has undertaken and specifically Rhinedottir's path towards the Magnum Opus which she's currently stopped at Albedo the second step. Her ultimate goal is the fourth step Rubedo but there's a third sometimes overlooked step Citrinitas that I think will play into the focal point of her, Albedo and by relation our story. Short version? It is very hard to get to Rubedo. It's not just because there's some kind of difficult process involved but rather it's that it's so vague that there's every possibility of getting it wrong. Citrinitas is the glass ceiling I think Rhinedottir and Albedo will smack right into. As described in alchemy that would be pure light whereas Rubedo is being able to understand the light and reach enlightenment. Gnosis.
The Tsaritsa is also theorized to be creating a power to defeat Celestia with most concluding that that power will be the element of Light. I actually agree that that's exactly what she's trying to do and that's why she's collecting the Gnoses from the other Archons. At the same time Delusions is a secondary path a way to artificially harness the power of the elements. But think about it like this. If Phanes is also of the Light element and you fight it with just the Light element then you're at best just an equal to it in strength. And it would have had eons more time to perfect its skills with the element. (My theory about the Second Who Came already suggests that going at Phanes straight is a bad idea.) Ultimately just like Citrinitas it's not the best solution.
Part III: 42
So if I have convinced you guys that Light is not Imaginary then what exactly is Imaginary?
It's not as obvious in English but the reason why miHoYo called the tree the Imaginary Tree is because of a concept in quantum mechanics. Imaginary numbers are currently believed by physicists to be required for describing reality. It's a little above the pay grade of us plebs but one thing that might make sense for us is the black hole. Black holes are evaporating through a process the late physicist Stephen Hawking once calculated called Hawking Radiation. Now how does Hawking Radiation work? Apparently at the event horizon of a black hole you get the spontaneous creation of virtual particle pairs, that's imaginary entities with opposing electrical charges that repel each other. One of these particles will be repelled into the black hole while the other virtual particle becomes real with a real mass that is taken from the black hole.
As it relates to Genshin what does this mean? Spontaneous creation of matter? That's the origin story of the Imaginary Tree itself. It just appeared out of the nothingness of the Sea of Quanta. The Genesis Pearl? Biblical genesis is about when god created the world and the word itself is Greek in origin meaning creation. In Chinese the pearl is called 创世珍珠 or World Creation Pearl. According to Dainsleif "fate will be yours to reweave" with the game mentioning Loom of Fate on a couple of occasions so far. What does Rubedo actually do? It creates the Philosopher's Stone which can turn lead into gold, cure illness and also create life.
Part IV: Rarity
So finally a curveball. While that's the Eighth Element of Imaginary that we'll unlock I think the Descenders are all still powered by Light. There's Phanes of course the First Descender. But notice how our Traveler twins start out with pure white highlights on their outfits? Our sibling told us they already went through their journey and got to the end. They have those same white highlights again but we learned something about them recently didn't we? They aren't Descenders anymore. And yes I'm still fairly certain they started out as one. The reason they aren't counted anymore is because they didn't quite understand their journey and instead were corrupted by the Abyss. Again remember the Abyss is powered by the Void the opposite to the Imaginary. While I don't think our sibling has Void powers like the Abyss they've been affected by it just enough that Irminsul can record them now.
And that's what makes the major plot of this game important right? What did I say about Rhinedottir? Albedo? The Tsaritsa? The Fatui? The Abyss? Our sibling? They've all gone and barked up the wrong tree and missed the point. They will end up or have already peaked at the Light element. The purpose of their failures though is just to show how easy it is to fail. Because of that it is a very delicate position we're in where at any point we could also make the wrong move and be stuck with just Light and that's it. Teyvat will have to wait for a Fifth Descender to hopefully get it right.
What actually makes it worse is that I don't even think any of the Descenders are brought to Teyvat to gain the Eighth Element of Imaginary. Phanes was first summoned and all it did was create the Heavenly Principles underneath its fake sky of Firmament. The first to figure out that something else needed to be done was the Second Who Came which I theorize is the representative of the Aeon Sophia in Gnosticism or the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles after Phanes got through with her. Because she set down on that path Phanes got nervous and started chucking down "forbidden knowledge" eliminating Divine Nails. Our sibling arrived next followed by us but they clearly missed the point since after the Sustainer attacked they only cared about revenge and righting the wrongs they saw. They are very far from the path.
Now as the RPG mission statement usually goes: It is up to us to find the answer and save the world.
So notice what's been happening. The original Archons have given up their leadership roles. They continue to take a vested interest in our journey with two of them already hoping we'll also act as a memory bank for Teyvat in case it all goes wrong and the world itself is reset. We've already seen this come into play: We're the only ones that can remember Rukkhadevata and bypass alterations to Irminsul.
And finally there was that most recent thing that happened to us.
An unidentified voice spoke to us. It told us to believe in our own experiences instead of what we don't actually see for ourselves. I believed this is actually Sophia speaking to us. The delivery of the lines is similar enough to Christie's previous portrayal of the Sustainer but the Chinese makes it far more obvious thanks to Dian Tao's very unique delivery of her HOV style lines.
So you might be incredulous because the Sustainer is the one that trapped us and separated us from our sibling right? She upholds the Heavenly Principles now. But
I've mentioned this before. The English localization has fluffy text but in its original Chinese believe me "keeper" means the Sustainer. Something's happened to her in the 500 years we've been locked away. Either it's the theories that believe she's dying or maybe the fact that Celestia is dormant means the control Phanes has over her is fading. Whatever it is the voice acting shows it's Sophia speaking to us.
And what she's saying is that we're it. What we see in front of us is the truth. Everything else and in particular the conclusions others have drawn are distractions. We can't let them get to us or we'll end up just like all our predecessors. That btw is also why I believe our sibling has to be a Descender anyway because that's our memories. Even if the Fatui say otherwise they currently have believed for hundreds of years that they skipped over a Harbinger rank for no reason.
Now I don't know if there's any other reason why there's more importance being placed on us not messing up. Maybe there's a limit to how often the Descenders can fail? But regardless everything we've seen has pointed out that getting this Eighth Element is very hard and it's very easy to fall off the path and end up getting Light at best. Without Imaginary nothing changes and then there was no point to our MC's whole story. How's that for stakes?
In summary:
Eighth Element is Imaginary.
Imaginary =/= Light
Light is the power of the Descenders.
Imaginary is the power of the Imaginary Tree.
Just like the tree itself it's the power of creation:
- a. Rubedo (Philosopher's Stone)
- b. Loom of Fate
- c. Genesis Pearl
The game is showing us stakes in the form of it being very hard to get to the Eighth Element because most roads curve into Light instead. Not good enough.
Our sibling is still a Descender. Trust in our own eyes. What we don't see is an illusion.
Topic originally created on January 18th, 2023.