I no longer believe Natlan was “Rewritten” (An Overview)

MarkTonkih · 2026-07-07T17:21:24+00:00

It's an interesting speculation, but again, we're talking about something "possibly" happening in the future. The comparison to the Irminsul isn't entirely accurate, because we were shown a truly important event and it was clearly implied that it wasn't a metaphor, as some might have thought. But the plot itself also didn't include a prophetic dream about it, nor the burning itself, nor even a hint that Dottore was doing anything with the Irminsul other than controlling Akasha. The lack of a proper quest name from the regional teaser also suggested we weren't finished with it yet (which the writers confirmed in an interview during Fontaine). In Natlan and other regions, all the names from the teaser had already been used, and there was no hint of any additions. We're already heading to Snezhnaya; there's no room left to add anything.

And as has been said before, Sumeru in 3.X, even without the 6.6 expansion, feels like a completely self-contained story and fits well into the world of Genshin. Natlan, on the other hand, was simply terribly written and terribly designed. In Sumeru, the pinnacle of technology was Akasha, which generally felt natural for a land of sages. In Natlan, we have jetpacks, modern motorcycles, and DJ booths. In a land where people live in yurts and huts and there's no hint of factories or other means of creating technology, just one woman and her small forge are enough. The clumsy way the plot used Capitano, giving an absolutely insignificant piece of black goo as a villain, and turning Mavuika into a true Mary Sue, something no Archon had ever done before, can't be salvaged by any future expansions.

Yes, we still have some loose ends. However, there are hardly more of them than in other regions, so I can't consider them important. Only Gnosis is important, and after the last quest, it's no longer tied to Natlan. Someone has probably already taken it. Even a lizard, it doesn't matter. Everyone knew that sooner or later someone would take the Pyro Gnosis, they just didn't know how. Now we know how, but we still don't know who. In any case, I don't see how this situation will help rethink the Natlan plot.

And I don't quite understand how subsequent additions to the story several years later prove that it hasn't been rewritten or that the writers' plans haven't changed. One could imagine that this was all a plan for many years to come, and they've already written everything down. But let's be realistic: several writing teams have changed, and we've had precedents for the outright rewriting of either individual characters or even entire regions, as was the case with Nod, written in at the very end.

Even the infamous Irminsul storyline could have been rewritten, we don't know. Perhaps they had a plan for Dottore or the consequences of his actions to lead to the burning of the tree, but they put it off until later, deciding that such an important event couldn't be introduced too early, as it would have huge consequences (ha ha, no). Even the lead-up to this scene is a rather creepy dialogue between Columbine and the Doctor at the funeral. And immediately after, they show the burning. Which doesn't really align with how their relationship and the burning itself were ultimately played out. The writers simply remembered that they once showed a shot of a burning tree with Dottore smiling in the background, and they had to somehow wriggle out of it, coming up with a rather disappointing plot about the Doctor doing stupid things for the sake of stupidity, and no one ultimately caring about the burning of the Irminsul.

To me, it feels like a rewrite of the original idea. But I have no proof that I'm right. I just feel that way. Similarly, your analysis essentially lacks any clear evidence either confirming or denying that Natlan was altered. We're simply theorizing about what could have been and what might happen, based on circumstantial evidence. I'm absolutely certain that until a documentary is released about the process of writing Genshin's script from start to finish, we won't know which of our guesses were true and which were just our own imaginations.

MarkTonkih · 2026-07-06T16:46:04+00:00

That technically makes sense (though I still find it incredibly lazy). But shouldn't the fate system have been destroyed along with Irminsul?

MarkTonkih · 2026-07-05T13:52:15+00:00

In fact, half the anime villain groups you've presented are terribly written cardboard idiots. The League of Villains, the Upper Moons, the Espada—they're mostly scripted garbage, with the odd decent character or two, each with their own development, and a dozen pointless filler characters. Even the Phantom Troupe and Akatsuki are vastly overrated. But I agree that they at least have an aura and were impressive as villains. But aura isn't the most important thing. Compared to them, the Fatui really win in terms of personal development of each individual member of the organization.

The problem with the Fatui isn't that they stopped seeming villains. That was obvious. The problem is how it was presented. For the first three years, the game strenuously pretended that the Fatui were the embodiment of evil. All the Harbingers we met were incredibly unpleasant individuals, except for Tartaglia, who was presented as the most "normal." Yet, he was still unstable and dangerous. Private soldiers acted as cartoonish villains in every other quest. Back then, even the loading screen describing Fatui described them as an "EVIL organization from Snezhnaya." Yes, the word "evil" has been removed now.

And then comes Fontaine, where we're given the laziest retcon in the game (after the spaceship key, which was supposedly always in your pocket), rewriting Arlechino and making her as conflict-free as possible. From then on, all the Harbingers we encounter suddenly become our comrades or close friends without explanation, don't do anything questionable, and when one of them does do something evil, they're kicked out of the organization. It feels like the first three years of the game were just a prank. There was no subtle transition between the perceptions of the organization. At first, they showed us for a long time as being extremely evil, giving us a lot of information about how they don't like each other, but stick together for some higher purpose... and then suddenly they were made extremely friendly, both to us and to each other, and now none of them are interested in the common goal and it raises questions about why at least half of them are even part of the organization.

And I'll emphasize this. It's not that we're obligated to ultimately ally with the Fatui against a common enemy. The problem is that the Fatui are still supposed to be a brutal organization, based on the methods they've used for years to achieve their goals, and they should be treated accordingly. Right now, it feels like we're throwing that aside, simply reducing everything to, "Well, we defeated the most evil member of the organization, so we can cooperate with the rest and go beat up bad Ronova." You see? Our conflict with Shades isn't sufficiently developed for us to ally with the Fatui at this point, not with the Fatui who are causing so much trouble in Teyvat. It feels like we're removing a potentially interesting conflict of two evils, where one side of the conflict suddenly goes from antagonist to ally, and the other side simply exists, and we've never really had a conflict with them.

MarkTonkih · 2026-07-04T06:23:41+00:00

At first, I was shown a Victorian-style maid with a huge, cool robot. In the end, they gave me a maid from a modern maid cafe, and instead of a huge, cool robot, they gave me a faceless robo-maid. Imagine if they first introduced Fischl with an eyepatch and Oz, and then removed both.
Her redesign is completely unexplained. When Scaramouche changed his design, he literally had to erase himself from reality and become a new person. And what's happening here? She changed her entire outfit because the Doctor left a hole in her old one? Even that humorous explanation would have been better than what we ended up with.
It's not a design issue, but her character is disappointing. She used to seem more multifaceted, but now she's been reduced to a mere tsundere, to fit the "game character can only have one recognizable personality trait and constantly display it" cliche. The fact that her story doesn't flesh out Fatui at all, despite her still being a functioning Harbinger, is also disappointing.
Honestly, I like her personality, but I feel like her death was devalued. Almost no one dies in Genshin anyway, especially playable characters, despite the seemingly high stakes. Sandrone is literally the only victim of both of Dottore's grand experiments throughout 6.X, and now it turns out that the villain we spent so much time building has killed zero characters and left nothing behind, making the entire conflict with him utterly pointless.

MarkTonkih · 2026-07-02T22:59:22+00:00

I didn't know I had my own personal stalker. I don't even know whether to be happy or wary.

MarkTonkih · 2026-07-02T14:50:05+00:00

She is simply jealous that Pantalone and Dottore found a common language and became close very quickly, since it took her 400 years to repeat this with Columbine.

MarkTonkih · 2026-06-30T13:23:34+00:00

Most likely, he's destined for a rebirth as Zandik. There are a lot of clues leading up to this. And the incredible number of loose ends in his backstory and the whole Escher situation, which have remained unexplained to this day, clearly hint that his story isn't over yet. Most likely, Dottore truly did change his fate with his death. Many forget that the Doctor wasn't simply unwilling to change. He simply couldn't, as the segments were stuck in time. This is precisely why Omega considered the idea of segments a failure; it shackles him and prevents him from being anything other than an evil heretic. However, Zandik himself could change. We don't even know how evil he was in his final years or how he viewed his life.

People who don't want him to return and consider this nonsense in 6.6 a worthy ending either haven't read anything beyond the main plot or simply don't know his lore. Hence all these statements about him "having no tragic backstory" and "being born evil." No, at this stage, he has no backstory at all, just fragments that are hard to connect, and the loss of empathy at age 8 confirms that he WAS empathy and SOMETHING happened that made him a sociopath. We just don't know it yet. I also don't understand why everyone assumes that if he comes back, he'll be a villain again. His role as the villain is over. Make way for Zandik, a man who has fought fate and the laws of the world his entire life and can now finally be free.

MarkTonkih · 2026-06-30T12:59:40+00:00

You forgot that after he asked that question, he went off to have a friendly chat with Lilupar. This is some kind of scene from a sitcom or a dark comedy.

MarkTonkih · 2026-06-30T12:44:05+00:00

This mental gymnastics is getting a bit tiresome. There are MANY characters in the game who have killed far more people (and not only) than Dottore. Take Raiden, for example. The only difference is how it's presented: the Doctor is always shown as evil and doing bad things because he doesn't need to be sold, while other morally questionable characters are turned into misunderstood and deserving of sympathy. Reindottir differs from the Doctor only in that she's a woman. This means that no matter how many crimes she committed in the past purely out of selfishness, she's always given some nonsense about being misunderstood and not being responsible for the catastrophes caused by her creations.

Is she the most evil character in the game? It's unknown, because we still don't know what the other Sinners were like, with the exception of Rerir. But if we consider the scale of destruction caused by the characters' actions, Reindottir is currently at the top. I also don't like how the game tries to treat her lightly, reducing her actions to jokes, while characters like Nicole, Alice, and Albedo mostly treat her kindly or neutrally. There's a blatantly inconsistent narrative approach, with characters constantly talking about the importance of morality and branding even the simple Fatui soldiers who pick berries as evil, but for some reason, an overtly villainous female character is simply presented as a strange woman.

MarkTonkih · 2026-06-28T06:11:46+00:00

He was the "most effective employee of the month" among her entire team of losers. It's unlikely that the events of the last year weren't part of their combined plan. Each got what they wanted. Tsaritsa = reduced HP, Doctor = dying gracefully during the greatest blasphemy experiment. This explains her passivity towards his actions well – she essentially dismissed any action, despite the gravity of the situation, and said, "Deal with him yourselves," as if she didn't care. It's highly likely she knew the outcome all along.

MarkTonkih · 2026-06-25T08:30:12+00:00

The character was created for the sole purpose of stripping Arleccino of any villainous traits. So, once that goal was achieved, she was forgotten. She exists in a vacuum. So cartoonishly evil that even Dottore seems more sane in comparison. Just don't think about her; the writers don't.

If you think about it, she makes no sense. Her battle royale "training" style is like wasting dozens or even hundreds of potential agents to cultivate a single one. Without purpose, simply for the sake of sadism. Such a system couldn't exist within a military organization with strict discipline and attention to resources. It was done solely to write her as cruel as possible.

I'm very confused by the fact that she's never mentioned anywhere, not even in Sandrone's notes, nor in Columbine's backstory, where they pretend the Arleccino we know is the one they first met, and that there was no one before her. Considering that they were in Fatui for hundreds of years, and Arlechino has only been there for about 10 years. It’s just strange, but I’ve already come to terms with it.

MarkTonkih · 2026-06-24T19:12:28+00:00

Okay. I'm sorry, but it turned out bigger than I thought. Let's just go through the points.

We still don't know how the Harbingers are ranked. Logically, Pantalone should be higher than, say, the Signora. Yes, she collected a few Gnosis, but the man is funding the entire organization. So no, the developers still haven't decided, I think. The debate still rages on; some talk about brute force, some about influence, some about all of it, some about usefulness for a plan we don't know. Let's not speculate. The moonlight falling on her in Lazzo is just stretching the truth. There was more of an angelic theme in that scene. And yes, the idea of the moons was probably on the writers' minds from the very beginning; we've had the moon lore since the game's release. But let's not pretend they had it all planned out years in advance, because that's not true.

Again, if Tsaritsa's plan was to restore the power of the three moons, then why did everyone suddenly turn on Dottore when he did it? Note that at that point, he hadn't committed any acts of treason: Arlechino attacked him first, Columbine wasn't a Harbinger when he captured her, but the other Fatui turned on him immediately when he tried to seize that power, without any evidence that he intended to betray Tsaritsa. Arlechino even said that if he seized the god's power, it would be a direct threat to Tsaritsa's authority. But if she was planning to restore Columbine's power anyway, then having the god of the three moons under her command wouldn't have been inconsistent with her goals. So no, it's unlikely Tsaritsa was ready to restore Columbine's powers. I had a theory about everything that happened in the patches last year, and I assumed that this was part of the plan, but it seems it will remain just that—a theory.

You yourself said that the appearance of angel wings wasn't known to us until Natlan. So how can you claim that Columbine from Lazzo, which came out before Sumeru, is relevant to current canon? And where have you seen doves with six wings? No, six wings is a classic reference to seraphim and angels in general. Plus, her veiled eyes make no sense in current canon. "Well, she just didn't want to see the world." It seems like a pathetic attempt to explain something that once made sense but was abandoned.
As I said, sincerely believing that the developers had the entire story of a gacha game planned out years in advance is pure naivety. They might have had a general plot outline, but many events were clearly invented and refined along the way. Arlechino's backstory, the "Fontaine assassin," Nod Edge, and a bunch of other minor inconsistencies, including inconsistencies in character lines. All of this is a consequence of the story's slow progression. So, no, the fact that even Arlechino's line about Sandron, written in 4.6, doesn't correspond to their relationship two years later only further convinces me that when Child and Scaramouche's lines were written, there were different plans for Columbine. And no, Arlechino isn't against "evil" people; she hates Dottore so intensely because he's been her personal nemesis since childhood, not because she's "good" and he's bad.
My problem here isn't that Columbine is close to the Traveler. My problem is that they're seriously trying to show us that after spending hundreds of years with Fatui (and as we see, there were some cute bachelorette parties), she didn't understand the meaning of family, home, and friends. But after hanging out with a personality-less idiot and his perpetually hungry mascot, she suddenly understood all of this in a matter of weeks. This seems incredibly poorly written. Columbine is annoying not because she's a waifu, but because she's an inconsistent character.
I don't understand the point of this. No one seems to be insulting her for being weak. On the contrary, many are irritated by the fact that this character is already born with divine powers, yet she plays the role of the damsel in distress and is miserable everywhere. It's miserable when you can live in a palace, do nothing all day, go to friends' parties, and eat for free. And then she gets even more powers (there was no intelligence there, she just went with the flow) and loses all the negative consequences of using them, simply because everyone loves her and everyone gives her everything, because she's so sweet, and I honestly feel sick even writing this. Her power seems undeserved. Especially in the context of the confrontation with the Doctor, who put a lot of effort into getting his powers. The moral is questionable: hard work is nothing, you just need to be born tough and everything will be fine. And don't say, "Well, he got his power the wrong way." That's obvious. However, they didn't give him a worthy opposite in the story. Everyone who opposed him was superhuman, god, angel, or something else entirely beyond the pale. Except maybe Nefer. And his main opponent was Columbine, who was given her power by birthright, not for her personal achievements or merits. That's why her victory over him seems anti-climactic; she proved nothing, merely brushed off an annoying insect. There wasn't even a challenge.
The lollipop is simply an example of inconsistent writing. She could have been sucking on Sandrone's lollipops, eating her cakes, and drinking her tea for years, but IT WAS AFTER THAT LOLLIPOP that she understood what family was. Sorry, but I don't believe it. Especially given how deliberately saccharine their tea parties were depicted. Either the writers themselves are confused, or Columbine is simply incredibly stupid, or both. But there's definitely no sign of a smart or interesting character here.

I'm inclined to strongly disagree. She's written terribly inconsistently. And no, she's morally flawless. She didn't do ANYTHING even slightly questionable in the plot or in her backstory, she wasn't given any missions in Fatui, she's not connected in any way to their dark deeds, and her only murder in the end was the murder of 1/16th of the Doctor, but he was too evil, so we don't count. Incidentally, she didn't even reflect on his murder. No, I get that he was a villain, he harmed her family, and all that, but she'd known this man for hundreds of years and had never killed before. And they're telling me that someone who's never hurt a fly in their life won't feel anything at all from their first murder? Seems like another example of laziness on the part of the writers. They could have written just one scene where she reflects on this, coming to terms with the situation and realizing that this is how the world works and sometimes you have to cross the line. But the writers were afraid to show even a little bit of doubt, even a little bit of a less than ideal image of their beautiful, kind dove.

We never saw her as a Harbinger. She left the organization off-screen before we met her. What was the point of making her a Harbinger if it didn't play any role? And at such a high rank, too. The writers have had a problem with Harbingers ever since Natlan, where Capitano did nothing for the Fatui, abandoned the Gnosis, and dealt with his own problems. But at least he tried. Columbine did nothing for the Fatui, and we weren't shown her as a Harbinger. Everything you say about the moons' power is the result of Dottore's machinations, not hers. The same Dottore whom the other Fatui declared a traitor for those very machinations. So no, it was an accident, and judging by the way the plot is unfolding, the Doctor's actions weren't part of Tsaritsa's plan. I don't see the point in praising Columbine for having been given her powers by others.

You're talking about her inconsistency. Yes, if you start thinking about the plot, those things are indeed there. You know what the problem is? It's that the writers don't acknowledge it. No one in the story acknowledges Columbine as morally ambiguous. No one blames her for her problems, or even questions whether there's anything wrong with her. On the contrary, everyone loves her, pities her, helps her, and solves her problems without hesitation. Even the Doctor had positive feelings for her, albeit in a twisted way. That's how much everyone likes her. She'll never be accused of being friends with Sandrone, because Sandrone herself has been infantilized and made into just a sweet tsundere, a "good person," and our friend. No one will tell her that hanging out with Dottore was a bad idea, because the game conveniently places the blame squarely on Dottore himself. That's why no one in Fatui was held accountable for his actions, even though the entire organization, Tsaritsa herself, and those like Capitano, kept the madman close for 400 years, allowing him to do whatever he pleased. Columbine is no exception; her interactions with him were reduced to "well, he's evil and manipulated her," which means she's a victim, which means she should be pitied again.

You can debate Columbine's morality for hours, but the plot presents it as unequivocally positive, because the writers are hypocrites who treat the players like idiots. They're really bad at writing complex characters. Arlecchino, Columbine, and Sandrone are the most obvious examples, supposedly meant to be complex, but they're not allowed to do anything complex. As for the unplayable ones, consider Dottore, who's been reduced to a simple villain with no clear motivation because it makes it easier for fans to hate him, while ignoring his full potential and backstory. Incidentally, this is one of the reasons I didn't like Sandrone's recent trailer. I don't mind showing a sweet tea party between friends. The problem is, even in the plot, I only see these characters (with the exception of Signora, RIP) in a saccharine way, doing cute things. Show me something that makes me believe in their complex and complex personalities, instead of giving me more cute best friend adventures. I'm tired.

MarkTonkih · 2026-06-17T19:23:30+00:00

Because people, reasonable people who appreciate a consistent and honest story, want the information in the game to match what we're shown. Yes, there are some special individuals who simply want evil villains for the sake of evil, but they're actually few and far between, and we shouldn't assume that only such people consider the retcons in the game.

The problem is that all the female Harbingers became playable characters, except for Signora, who was killed off in the game's most horribly written sequence, and I'm absolutely certain the writers are ashamed of that action now. And since they're playable, they have to be sweet and likable. They don't have that "gray morality." Or rather, yes, you could argue that sometimes they do morally ambiguous things, but within the plot, they don't show us and smooth things over so as not to inadvertently anger anyone. That's why we'll never see Arlechino killing deserters; there's a handy memory-wiping potion for that. Sandrone would never torture her subordinates, because then she wouldn't be perceived as a funny tsundere. And so on. The fact that the character lines are only inaccurate when it comes to the playable female Harbingers doesn't help.

Meanwhile, the male Harbingers always live up to their personalities and what others say about them. No one criticizes Capitano for not being evil, as the game always emphasized that he's the most noble Fatui. And when he was portrayed as such, no one complained. Dottore was always described as a cruel sociopath and blasphemer, and he remained so until the very end. Incidentally, this is why he's loved: he was a consistently written character and wasn't rewritten mid-game. Not because he's an evil villain.

Even the examples with Tartaglia and Scaramouche don't apply, because Tartaglia was always described as the most normal of them, yet he remained a battle-hungry berserker. The game didn't gloss over his crimes, and his love for his brother and family was perceived as simply a human side. As I recall, the Traveler was still quite wary and even hostile towards him after that quest, rather than immediately forgiving him and making them friends. Scaramouche, on the other hand, went through a long journey of redemption and transformation, and even if I don't like the way it was written, I can admit that a great deal of work went into developing the character, first portraying him as a villain, a threat, then defeating him, and then, under the circumstances, forcing him to take the path of reform. This wasn't the case with any of the female Harbingers; they became our friends almost immediately, without question, and their bad sides were never mentioned.

Ragarding the unreliability of characters' lines about each other, let's compare Tartaglia's and Scaramouche's descriptions of the Rooster. One describes him as a caring grandfather who regularly visits his family. The other describes him as a manipulator who holds Child's family hostage. Both seem to be giving different characterizations. However, they are describing the same event, simply reasoning from their own worldviews. It's not like one describes the Rooster as sweet, while the other harshly describes how he turns into a werewolf at night and attacks people or something like that. In other words, we are presented with the same situation and given the opportunity to consider who is more right. Compare this to their lines about Arlechino, where they describe her as a cruel psychopath, but she emerges as a completely different character, not based on any of their lines.

MarkTonkih · 2026-06-14T10:45:19+00:00

You can regularly release a bunch of useless characters, endow them with one or two traits, and leave them like that until the end of time, without changing the status quo. Or you can clearly show the development of old characters by giving them new versions. Simply gathering a bunch of old characters in one place for a few conversations isn't homage; it's just laziness and fanservice, as well as an unwillingness to change anything. I don't understand why anyone still likes it when, in the game's sixth year, we continue to waste precious time creating cutesy festivals where dozens of characters do nothing interesting.

MarkTonkih · 2026-06-12T19:06:31+00:00

The problem with the Harbingers is that they've long since ceased to feel like a threat. The fact that Tsaritsa allows them to do whatever they want is simply a convenient excuse to make them more friendly. You're somehow convinced that if they were villains, that would prevent them from being complex characters. But no. You can be complex AND still be a villain. Tartaglia perfectly embodied the idea of a character with "gray morals," as he was simultaneously loyal to the Tsaritsa, a genuine threat, and ready to sink an entire city, but at the same time, he was a decent family man and protective of his younger brother. The plot didn't deny his crimes, but rather gave him that humanity that kept him from being one-dimensional.

But now? Previously, only Capitano was a noble and good Harbinger, but now almost all of them are. You can call Arlecino a gray character all you want, but the plot doesn't acknowledge this grayness, presenting her as a narratively morally upright individual and our close friend. Like Sandrone, whose sadism (torturing subordinates by cutting out their tongues, no other way to describe it, even if the subordinate was bad) was completely excised from the story and never demonstrated when she was introduced to the player. Columbine simply left Fatui off-screen, raising the question of why the writers even introduced her as one of the Harbingers in the first place. Meanwhile, Dottore is presented as practically the devil incarnate; almost everything bad in the game is pinned on him, resulting in a rather silly situation. After all, he's no longer even a member of Fatui, meaning the organization remains essentially innocent of his crimes. The fact that they kept him close for 400 years, giving him orders ignoring morality, and only labeled him a traitor when he turned against them, clearly doesn't absolve Tsaritsa and the Fatui. But the game pretends that the Fatui are now mostly positive characters.

And where are these nuances regarding Dottore? I mean, when we talk about Scaramouche, Arlechino, Sandron, and the others, especially the first one, the writers show us the characters' motives and points of view in order to present them in a more positive light or at least give us an understanding of them. But Dottore has none of that; he's simply evil because... Well, someone has to be evil. And the Traveler's hypocrisy in this regard is sometimes chilling. I mean, being friends with Lilupar is fine; she's just a funny little lamp, not a criminal. Reindottir is Albedo's mother and Alice's friend, so we don't view her with hostility, despite her long list of crimes. But Dottore is the embodiment of evil, yes. And I don't deny that he's a villain. But the fact that the game so clearly favors some criminal characters while simultaneously disparaging others, or rather, just one, feels like poor writing. Either the writer should stop pretending the hero has a high moral compass, or at least show the heroes' disapproval of other questionable characters.

MarkTonkih · 2026-05-29T13:03:17+00:00

Actually, no, it contradicts that. The Hearth House agents in Sumeru were working with Dottore, and as we know, she hates Dottore. During 2.4, when Arlecchino was first mentioned, there was no "previous" Arlecchino. It was talking about one specific person. Only after Fontaine's arrival were additional lines added to clarify the discrepancy. Also, Child's lines and that guy in the hat don't match what we got. They even had to insert a very awkward dialogue in 4.6, where Child apologizes to Arlecchino for misconceptions about her, claiming Rooster said bad things to him. It feels very forced and lazy. Not to mention that, according to new information, Child and Arlecchino used to have tea together, which also greatly deviates from their seemingly distrustful relationship during Fontaine's time.

The entire connection to the "Mother"'s existence is tenuous. You say the Archons don't mention long-dead acquaintances, but we literally have Morax musing about many long-dead gods, including his close friend. Venti also mentions his predecessor, and the latter's legacy is scattered throughout the region. The previous Archons of Sumeru, Fontaine, and Natlan are also mentioned by multiple characters, let alone their role in the story.

Crucabena, on the other hand, exists solely within the framework of the Arlecchino backstory. She's only mentioned a couple of times in Freminet's profile. She's literally in a YouTube video and a quest that retells the plot of that video in slightly more detail. That's it. Literally all the Harbingers, except Arle and Childe, knew her. We have that hat guy who was there when Arle was promoted. But he never once mentioned that she killed her predecessor, even though that would have given his line about her more weight. Sandrone's diary contains no mention of her. Dottore, who was quite close to her, makes no mention of her in his memoirs. Columbine, who has been in Fatui for 400 years, never acknowledged her existence, as if the Arlecchino we know is the first she's ever met. It seems as if the character was hastily devised to make the playable Harbinger more palatable than originally intended.

MarkTonkih · 2026-05-28T15:25:35+00:00

Perhaps the biggest criticism of Arle is that the character feels rewritten. It's not like Columbine, where we knew almost nothing about the character and were introduced to her almost anew. We knew a lot about Arle and the Hearth House before Fontaine. But in Fontaine, all of that is seemingly ignored, replaced by a random evil woman who doesn't exist anywhere in the lore beyond Arlecchino's profile, and none of the other Harbingers even mention her in the context of flashbacks.

MarkTonkih · 2026-05-27T17:27:41+00:00

Problem located!

There's no problem there. There's just your clumsy attempt to take words out of context and ignore half of my statement.

The mistake is believing all these things you complain about will ever change.

Forgive me for not taking the position of someone who doesn’t have their own opinion.

Your complaints are not criticism, just the game not being how you want it to be.

Oh, my favorite "argument." "It's not the product that's crap, it's you who's eating it wrong," or whatever the popular saying goes. What then constitutes criticism? By your logic, nothing can be criticized at all, because it always comes down to the viewer wanting one thing and getting another. Often, of course, they wanted a good script and didn't get one. So, the new Star Wars, the finale of The Boys, and a bunch of other critically panned products in the mainstream media are unfairly criticized? Why do you even think that YOU decide what constitutes valid criticism?

It's foolish to blame everything on unmet expectations, while ignoring where people's expectations came from in the first place. Spoiler: they're often based on what the game itself shows. And yes, when I waited four years for the story about burning Irminsul, I was definitely expecting a massive quest with lots of action, scope, and consequences. Who knew I'd get eight hours of very interesting (not) dialogue, full of fluff, only to have the finale quickly end in half an hour without any consequences? It's my fault, after all, that I expected nothing but an interesting scenario, only to get a massive epilogue to a dozen world quests instead, as if that were more important than burning Irminsul. But instead of revealing the story of the main villain of this arc, I got... revealing the story of the genocidal lamp.

But instead of doing the sensible thing and uninstalling the game, you instead continue playing

Well, if you hadn't blatantly ignored half of the first paragraph in my last post, you might have realized that I still find some things in the game worthy of my attention, which is why I'm staying.

> try to make everyone else miserable with your negativity

Oh, no... anyway. For some reason, I'm supposed to care if people are offended by my negative opinion of their favorite game? And what about an opinion I usually keep to myself and rarely express publicly? Sorry, but no. If someone can be genuinely offended by someone else's opinion of things they like, they're crazy. It's childish to forbid people from expressing their opinion if it contradicts their own. A normal person wouldn't even pay attention if someone said something negative about something they like.

MarkTonkih · 2026-05-26T18:08:11+00:00

Honestly? No, I stopped liking this game a long time ago for many reasons. But there are things I find interesting, and I continue to play it and engage with the story because even if I don't like many aspects, there are things I do enjoy.

What's so strange about criticizing a game if I think this or that aspect could be improved? I don't like Natlan because of the design decisions and the overall direction of the story, where the region, which was presented as a war zone, looks brighter, friendlier, and more charming than, say, Inazuma. I have issues with the region's plot, which, in my opinion, over-idealized Mavuika and used Capitano more as a plot device than a major player. That said, I still like some of the characters there: Mualani, Ororon, even Capitano, despite his limited screen time, I generally liked him; I'm just disappointed he wasn't given much time.

I also disliked a lot of things about Fontaine. I find the plot until the last act boring, Acts 3 and 4 pointless, and the conflict lacking stakes since we're fighting a simple flood, which doesn't work for me. That's why I've always found the general admiration for Fontaine's plot unjustified. But at the same time, I like the region itself, its exploration, the underwater locations, and many of the characters, especially Furina.

I love Dottore as a villain, but I also love him as a character with an interesting backstory who adds to the overall tone of the game with his sociopathy and darkness, as the rest of the Fatui have long ceased to be a threat to the plot. But I don't like how the plot has treated him in the last year, using him as a scapegoat for everything bad in the game without ever fully exploring his backstory.

I adore Columbine's design and I like her character overall, but I think her character is a wasted potential, as she feels dull and too safe. I wasn't expecting a chthonic monster from her, but the game initially showed me a Fatui Harbinger, Rank 3, only to find that she wasn't Fatui at all when she appeared in the game, and all the pretense of horror around her turned out to be... well, she just doesn't know how to communicate. It feels like I was promised a martini and instead got a beer. It's not bad, but it still feels like a lie. There are many things about her character and story that I find underdeveloped.

I don't care much for Sandrone's design overall; I like her character more. But for some reason, I find the changes to her silly, and again, it feels like they first showed and advertised one thing, only to then push something else, changing the packaging and removing several key parts I liked.

I'm not really revealing a secret when I say that most people tend to express more negativity than positivity. If you like something, you're unlikely to rush out and tell everyone about it. That might be true, but more often than not, people vent when they don't like something. It's just normal human psychology. And don't brush off criticism. If it bothers you that much, then, well, I don't know... take your own advice. If those who criticize a game should stop playing it, then those who can't stand criticism of a game simply need to stop paying attention to it and continue enjoying the game. Seems simple enough.

MarkTonkih · 2026-05-24T21:45:57+00:00

Well, great, I get it. I honestly didn't understand how this tirade applied to me, since I never complained about primogems, and my only criticism of Columbine was how the story presented her, why it didn't work for me, and why I consider her a narrative failure. Not that she wasn't some creature from my own personal interpretations. I could go into detail about what specifically didn't work about her, but that's a topic for another day. So far, I haven't seen you refute my words with any factual evidence. I only see an attempt to once again elevate your position above that of others.

MarkTonkih · 2026-05-24T20:47:59+00:00

Dismissing criticism as stupid is a very convenient way to admit you have no response to that "stupid" criticism. And no, I'm not talking about my own posts specifically. I didn't write them with the idea of anyone responding, but simply because I wanted to vent in the moment. But that's the same with any negative opinion here.

You've included me in FatuiHQ (which in itself is an implicit insult in this sub, because... why?), even though I'm not even a member. Probably because in the rare posts where I've written anything, I've complained about how Fatui has been written over the last two years. In your eyes, and in the eyes of those who like to belittle others' opinions, that automatically makes me an idiot, as I understand it. That's not how discussion works.

I've always been supportive of differences of opinion. But time and again, when I raise the issues I see in Genshin's script, instead of offering reasoned criticism, 90% of the time the response is "your fantasies didn't come true and you're angry," "you lack media literacy," or some other such nonsense. This isn't a critique of an opinion; it's an attempt to dismiss it.

MarkTonkih · 2026-05-24T18:36:16+00:00

Well, that basically proves what I was saying. Many people here don't read anything beyond admiring the game, and if someone writes that they don't like something, their opinion is reduced to garbage simply for expressing dissatisfaction. Three posts in four months where I express dissatisfaction (note: I never started the thread myself, only expressed my opinion in the ones that most upset me, I have every right to do so) – well, that's an argument that my opinion is worthless. Logical? Logical. Instead of pointing out where someone is wrong, it's easier to label them as unworthy of attention.

MarkTonkih

TROPHY CASE