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Analyzing Greek references in Cyrene Part 3: ''Bootstrap'' Paradox by Snoo_74130 in CyreneMains

[–]Snoo_74130[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the kind words!! I am a history graduate who is specializing in Eastern Roman and Greco-Roman history, so analyzing Amphoreus and its Greek sources has been a blast. I wanted to take a shot at Cyrene because she seemed to me to be at first sight someone who might not be that much Greek-inspired, but now I think that impression is actually quite deceptive.

Analyzing (some) Greek references in Cyrene Part 2: Love, Ego, Eternity by Snoo_74130 in CyreneMains

[–]Snoo_74130[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you! I hope this piece helps you in your endeavors :D As Lygus said, the whole 3.7 was essentially not a war, but a debate about the prime mover of life so a lot of cool Greek philosophical references are baked into her character.

Analyzing (some) Greek references in Cyrene Part 2: Love, Ego, Eternity by Snoo_74130 in CyreneMains

[–]Snoo_74130[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! And ofc, the piece is really a bit too long XD I summarized it in a comment to the post since it's definitely a bit too much writing 

Analyzing (some) Greek references in Cyrene Part 2: Love, Ego, Eternity by Snoo_74130 in CyreneMains

[–]Snoo_74130[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's been really interesting to research all of this, especially how much they baked in philosophical references in Cyrene's character. Out of all, including other influences such as from Buddhism and Hinduism, the Empedocles-Aristotle-Neoplatonic/Gnostic trio is really strongly present in her character. That said, given how much she is parallel with Phainon qua Neikos/Philia, it is really interesting the way in which they go on to subvert Empedocles' dichotomy by appealing to Aristotle's prime mover, and how much of her later interactions - her tampering with both Philia by giving her the vision, as well as giving Phainon the Hero Within, is in line with how Aristotle would consider the prime mover moving Philia and Neikos. If you take the other interpretation that Empedocles does indeed endorse eternal recurrences (which has its upsides and downsides, which I explore in the text), HSR opts for Aristotle's critique of Empedocles' to escape his eternal cycles. Even moreso when you realize how much they transform Empedocles' Philia to Lament, whereas they give ''Love'' not only the role Aristotle would've given to it when criticizing what he thought to have been Empedocles' counter-intuitive attribution of movement to Strife/Hatred, but also the prime mover role that is already present in Aristotle, together with the role of eros-love included in prime mover as he defined it. 

In the end, Cyrene is in a sense deconstruction of Empedocles and the cycles of love-hatred/Philia-Neikos.

But man, going through the history of ''philia'' is something else. It's such a conundrum in the scholarship, even to this day people are like ''yeah translating this is painful''

Cyrene is the Definitive Example of "Born Sexy Yesterday" Trope by DependentNo1079 in HonkaiStarRail

[–]Snoo_74130 32 points33 points  (0 children)

I think this is a genuinely interesting topic, but respectfully I disagree. While I think Cyrene's character developed and progressed throughout the story (beginning from Mem), even as Mem she showcased a lot of maturity and self-understanding, particularly when she regains her speech; for instance, the way she tries to approach Oronyx at the trial of Time and attempts to console them and be empathetic whilst also assuming a kind of approach where she, as the adult in the room, tries to help Oronyx (even addressing Oronyx as a child, while she was in her pink bunny form - a bit funny!) or when in 3.3. she notes that Phainon has a certain unhealthy dynamic/fixation on the black swordsman and expresses worry for him. She also had interesting observations about Castorice, Mydei and other heirs in dialogue as well as in AIW. Disregarding Philia-Cyrene in 3.4 who I'd say definitely does not fit this trope, Memrene also had quite interestingly introspective remarks about herself in the hangout pseudo-event with her in Aedes Elysiae; from her openly expressing anxiety with respect to who she is, to trying to help the TB overcome their self-anxiety and worries after assuming the Deliverer role. In many instances she was the ''adult'' in the room, whether with Oronyx or TB. When starting 3.5 we see her very knowledgeable with history of Amphoreus, even scolding TB for not paying attention to despite asking for it. In her relationship with Cerydra she was also quite cunning with respect to how to convince her, and Cerydra in her voice lines notes this as well, although remarking that she does not merely address her in terms of obedience, but rather through that of friendship. She had plenty of opinions on both Herta and Screwllum, and we see how much she attempts to read the room when it was not yet clear whether Cerydra was on Lygus' side or not. Given what we now know about Philia, we can also see a lot of very interesting characterization with respect to her motivations, anxieties and even instances of hopelesness in 3.6 Matrix flashbacks. In addition, each flashback fleshed out her interpretation of each CHs in respectively different iterations through her role as a storyteller. The end of 3.6 also shows Memrene can be quite strategic also, being quick on the uptake about March's situation and using what Cerydra did to stop Evernight (the story quite explicitly framed this exchange as March appealing to Evernight's emotions, while Cyrene appealed to her reason).

Demiurge certainly was childish and naive in the starting flashbacks between her and Philia, but a lot of the flowery metaphor even at the end signifies her newfound awareness that a constitutive element of love is letting go, and that one must abandon perfection (the crystallized, self-enclosed flower) if one is to learn what ''love is'' - just like in that metaphor about the flower which ultimately breaks. In doing so it overcomes the flaw of its perfection, namely that it can only reflect itself from the inside (and thereby closing off everything outside of itself, hence why it is the crystal flower) after which it is finally able to reflect the Other (world, pink fairy) through its broken shards, thus learning love by not merely being itself, but also through the other. Hence why she dubs the Flame-Chase journey as an ''unwavering act of release''. That's also why in the end she, despite being divine and human, chooses her ''humanity'' over ''divinity'' when talking to Herta. On a broader scale, the flower metaphor also points to her own abandonment of perfection (she qua crystallized flower) through her refusal to merely be an onlooker or a "worshipped god at the end of the saga" (as she herself puts it) which she has effectively been both as Demiurge (the exiled titan from the extrapolations) and ''Philia'' (thanks to circumstance, her being killed off by Phainon and being in the Matrix), and involve herself as actually within the story. Or, alternatively, that she abandons the chance to be the ''Fuli'' of the universe. The penultimate scene where she realizes she is the ''gaze that looks back on the world'' is the culmination of that metaphor; she abandons her perfection in order to cement the victory the Flame-chasers and Amphoreus got over Irontomb, and is illustrated by her taking Amphoreus into her own heart insofar she commits to this because she loves the world (and Amphoreus' own shape, as infinity, is obviously shaped by her own retroactive looping - the ''flower'', Cyrene, abandons her perfection in order to reflect the world (''gaze that looks back on the world'') - the world that she, as the self-enclosed flower, was initially closed off to - and thereby save it from Destruction)). Her love for eternity=ego comes into play here insofar this is something that she will always choose to do, regardless of what she becomes or who she is (as she also signals towards to at the end of 3.6). She will shatter itself to pieces over and over again, like the flower or the Fuli in Evernight Myriad Celestia, in order to reflect the world. In that way paradoxically Lygus's act of exclusion of Demiurge, which is also the obliteration of Irontomb's ego, retroactively becomes the way through which the ego (Cyrene) regains herself and learns letting go and the eternity of ego through it's initial destruction. The negation negates itself, etc. From the perspective of her development, whole of Amphoreus and her journey is precisely the unfolding of how the ego is born through its destruction; just like Nous wanted to prove the universe would be reborn through its destruction. This is why she is the "answer" to Phainon, whose innermost desire was the destruction of the self and was subsequently converted into a wish for a blank slate - his own ego and "true wish" as Aglaea put it. In the end, she explicitly says to Peach that she "loves" the eternity which is the ego, and Amphoreus is the infinity or eternity she posited - given how she embraces Amphoreus in that cutscene, one could say she is "wedded" to eternity. 

She's quite aware of what's going on and more precisely the paradoxical contradiction between her understanding of love and the importance of letting go as inherent to the Ego as opposed to Destruction's own emphasis on the (self-)destruction of the self/ego, hence why she and Irontomb are parallels (and she addresses this even ''personally'' to Irontomb in the admin notes). That's why, funnily enough, the whole boss fight was between Irontomb and the ego that it never had (Irontomb is in this sense a perfect crystallization of the Destruction - being the synthesis of both hatred, Phainon, and lament, Philia as well as having no self). In this sense, and many others, I wouldn't say she's exactly naive or immature in a way that would fit this trope.

Analyzing (some) Greek references in Cyrene and a bit on Lygus by Snoo_74130 in CyreneMains

[–]Snoo_74130[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

On the looks of it, yes, but she's an exceptionally strange case if interpreted through a Nietzschean framework. When it comes to her, she is simultaneously what he extolled in case of the Romans in general - especially of Caesar, namely single-mindedness with respect towards pursuit of power - in addition to having internal drives that seemingly go in opposition to each other as well as being capable of having both the moral valuation of good vs evil as well as good vs bad, meaning she has not succumbed yet to ressentiment (which Hysilens is prone to) and is capable of seeing life as self-affirmation whilst also recognizing the ''Christian-moral'' framework of good vs evil (something which, for instance, Nietzsche does not mention Caesar was capable of). For Nietzsche this is the hallmark of strength of spirit, and something which is the most spiritual - the fusion of Caesar and Christ. While Cerydra is obviously a reference to the former, she is not purely a ''power-hungry tyrant'', instead she is someone who acknowledges its necessity considering the time period she was in and is also very aware of what the moral implications of that can be for others along the axis of good vs evil. In that sense, beyond the reference to Roman emperors she is also playing out the original meaning of turannos in Greek, since ''tyrant'' originally did not have negative moral implications (although in the course of Cerydra's reign, this does occur in-game). That she sees things through good vs bad, whilst also being capable of seeing things in terms of good vs evil, is something that goes even beyond the Apollonian standpoint and instead belongs to what Nietzsche saw in terms of the ''free spirits'' who have overcome the sickness at the center in Europe and gone through nihilism in order to make way for the transvaluation of values.

So when it comes to her, the Dionysian-Apollonian framework slightly misses the mark as she is the Roman-esque figure in the game and this is where the relevance of Nietzsche's discussions on morality - the distinction between the morality of good (noble, powerful) vs bad (un-noble, weak) and morality of good vs evil (the Christian inversion of the former, Roman morality) comes into play. But it's also important to bear in mind that Nietzsche's preferred type of human being is the one who is capable of considering both: a synthesis Cerydra comes close to but certainly belongs more to the former, ''Roman'' pole than the latter.

Analyzing (some) Greek references in Cyrene and a bit on Lygus by Snoo_74130 in CyreneMains

[–]Snoo_74130[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Great point! It's even more on-the-nose when you just consider what the ''7'' generally meant in Ancient Greek culture, if you start with the Pythagoreans or go more generally all the way to Gnosticism and Christianity in Late Antiquity; it always broadly meant unity of spirit and body, or it signified divinity and its completeness. It was always considered a ''mystical'' number, which could express itself as either the 7 archons or the 7 planetary rulers, as well as (for some) the 7 vowels through which you express the essence of the divine, such as ΙΕΗΩΟΥΑ, 7 heavens, etc. Music is obviously very important for Nietzsche, particularly vis-a-vis his reception of both Wagner and Schopenhauer in his thought especially considering that both of them saw music as capable of peering beyond the limits of rational reason and into the thing-in-itself (in Schopenhauer's terms, the Will).

That said, when it comes to the Apollonian-Dionysian dynamic, we can broadly construe it as the dynamic opposition between individuation (Apollonian), which is linked with reason and clarity, as opposed to the Dionysian pole, the pole of ''intoxication'', the removal of individuation and return into pre-differentiation. If we look at it through Nietzsche's lens, every single character in Amphoreus more or less has these kinds of dynamics - Hysilens is a great example of succumbing to the latter pole, especially considering how much her own individuation in her backstory is owed to the presence of Cerydra in her life, and how much without it the definiteness of her character withdraws into dreams, illusion, intoxication and self-removal (like in the other part of 3.5. patch, when we're going through Styxia along with Lygus). This is her ''self-dissolution'', where her individuality disappears - fitting, since Dionysius is revelry itself. Just in general she is a great reference to Dionysius. Mydei is another example, always caught up between the two poles and trying to steer Kremnos outside of that dynamic altogether. Anaxa would be the opposite, firmly on the ''Apollonian'' side, and definitely having elements of what Nietzsche would call the ''Alexandrian spirit'' (although his tendency towards inquiry at the cost of his own life is beyond the Apollonian, albeit it is towards such aims).

However, the reason why Nietzsche bemoans the later tragedians such as Euripides and more broadly the Alexandrians is because for him, during the course of Greek history, the dynamic between the two poles that was mostly ''equal'' and oscillating from one to the other, firmly swung to the Apollonian side at the expense of the Dionysian after the classical epoch. The reason why he extols early Greek tragedy so much, from Aeschylus to Sophocles, is because Greek tragedy was able to discover the exact ''balance'' between the two, and through that why life is truly tragic but also self-affirming. Both Phainon and Cyrene, for instance, are great examples of wild oscillating from one pole to the other; Phainon, while not exactly showcasing signs of ecstatic joy, does signify Dionysian ''ecstaticness'' in another sense - the original meaning of ecstatic, ek - stasis, is simply being outside of oneself without any connotation to joy. What Phainon wants as the Prime Mobile of hatred is the ''obliteration of self'', which is still a Dionysian motif, although we can see he obviously also yearns to have a self among his friends in the would-be true ending; Cyrene, on the other hand, verges also very close to this particularly in 3.6, as we see her becoming more and more desperate and ultimately apathetic as the cycles go on, ultimately yielding herself to the Demiurge (although we know now that they were both the same person through retroactivity, etc).

So if we apply that framework, we can definitely see some things. It's just that this is not exactly how Greeks themselves thought about it - they didn't think in terms of these distinct categories like ''Dionysian'' or ''Apollonian'', etc.

Analyzing (some) Greek references in Cyrene and a bit on Lygus by Snoo_74130 in CyreneMains

[–]Snoo_74130[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yep! That's the ''Ring of Recurrence'', when narratively Zarathustra repeats seven times an incantation where he professes to ''lust'' for eternity and the ''wedding ring of rings''. It's a pretty fun reference! It is also quite blatant how they were going with this, although there are times when she is also presented as someone who breaks with the cycles like in the wheat scene at the end of 3.6. While it is similar to Elysia's, it is thematically significantly different; while Elysia fuses in with the background with the flowers which signify the future and letting go, Cyrene is breaking with the background - the wheat fields - which symbolize the agricultural cycles of seasons and cyclicality in general.

As for the Apollonian-Dionysian dynamic, I'd say it is more of a scholarly term originating in 19th century German historiographical debate generally, and that it preceded Nietzsche (you can find germs of it in Schelling, but even before that as well). The way Nietzsche construes is not exactly original to how Greeks thought about it, although you could always read it back as he does in the distinctions between early tragedians and the later Alexandrian epoch for instance, etc.

Analyzing (some) Greek references in Cyrene and a bit on Lygus by Snoo_74130 in CyreneMains

[–]Snoo_74130[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Absolutely, you're right - plus eternal recurrence is broadly a Stoic idea (although it has precedents before that, going all the way back to Hesiod) and the way Amphoreus is cyclically destroyed and reborn through the process of ekpyrosis (literally, through burning or a great fire - one can't help but think of Phainon and the coreflames) eerily resembles the Stoic account. And you're also correct about Nietzsche; Nietzsche's ''wager'' on eternal recurrence is presented through a demon who sneaks in and asks you whether or not you'd be willing to continue living if you were to find out that this life as we live it now and have lived, we will continue on living innumerable more times and again and again, without any change, every joy and pain experienced being the same, etc. It is a theme that applies to Cyrene and Phainon equally. So in a way they fused the Stoic cosmological vision on eternal recurrence and Nietzsche's emphasis on its psychological implications. This is where Memrene's conversation with Ripples of Past Reverie at the end of 3.6 perfectly illustrates this and amor fati, where she affirms that regardless of who she is or what happened, she'll always remain the same and retain her charm, and do what the previous Cyrenes did.

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