Genshin needs a rewrite
in many regards, but this one is about the Shades.
Sorry for the rush, but this is something I had to get out quickly after watching the new Genshin teaser “The God’s Limits” last night, and seeing my friend’s reactions, as well as many members of the community. I found the teaser large in scope, visually incredible, and ambitious in scope- yet, I do not believe it was the best, story wise, and that it has revealed what could be considered a fundamental weakness of Genshin’s approach to storytelling.
I should note beforehand that while I’ve been spoiled, I haven’t played the new Archon Quests, or Skirk’s Story Quest, as I am waiting for Zach Aguilar to return to voicing Aether, and hopefully Yuri Lowenthal to voice Dainslief, and these sorts of quests are never all that important towards the progression of the Archon Quests proper.
Here’s the current mentions of the Shades in the mainline story (Archon Quests and relevant Story Quests):
1 mention Inazuma, Istaroth (not referred to by name iirc) during Raiden's Story Quest regarding the Sacred Sakura
1 mention Paralogism AQ, Naberius (referred to by name)
multiple mentions of Ronova, Natlan AQs, as well as her appearance
1 appearance Asmoday, beginning of game (but zero mentions elsewise, so you would only know her name if you read the leaks, unless she was namedropped in the 5.7 AQ which I didn't play)
judging by my friend's reaction to this, it was clearly not enough.
Me, in Green, and my friend, in purple, with me trying to explain why it's a big deal that Venti's VA voices Istaroth (he doesn't know who istaroth is, or what a shade is.) It's clear, then, that the game is in severe need of rewrites to properly draw the player's attention to what is important, and that said rewrites have to occur earlier in the game. I might want to do a series like this with the Sinners as well, but we’ll have to see in the future. I may just run out of steam entirely after writing this.
we should start by Venti drawing a short connection between himself and Istaroth in Mondstadt AQs. Don't mention Shades, just the name and maybe her domain. It's becoming clear that there isn't a real reason to have kept this concealed, especially since all the lore theorists guessed the connection anyways, but the casuals didn't.
You fool no one, bard. Liyue can stay the same, but maybe Zhongli could bring up the Shades as a concept at some point as "the foremost servants of the Heavenly Principles" without naming any.
I also toyed with the idea of having Hu Tao namedrop Ronova, or Ruler of Death, or some other epithet, but at the end of the day, not only does she not appear in the mainline story, she also doesn’t really have a reason to know anything. I feel like only the archons knowing the shades is the most reasonable.
However, this is very clearly modeled after Ronova. Inazuma is where I'd like to add the biggest lore drops. It's very clear that Ei has the most experience with the Shades out of the archons, so she should be the one to inform the regular audience about Ronova and Istaroth, while keeping Naberius and Asmoday secret. If asked about those two, she can just say she doesn't know, but can inform the Traveler she doesn't think either Ronova or Istaroth are the Unknown God, although they could be.
It’s also crazy that during Raiden’s 2nd Story Quest, they actually do mention Istaroth by name, but rather than confirming her as a shade simply refer to her as a higher power, as if everyone in the conversation is supposed to automatically know her from that. Well, if Venti mentioned her, then we would know about that, and I think it’s reasonable at this point in the game to have some knowledge about the endgame.
This is clearly Ronova. Why did it take years to get it confirmed? Sumeru needs to contain the actual definition of a Descender. There is no good reason to have that in a Fontaine World Quest. Mention the Primordial One, Nahida, you should have SOME knowledge of him. Draw an explicit connection between the PO and the Heavenly Principles so that the casuals aren't lost. It's okay if she doesn't know any Shades, though.
I’m just a trapped child, how would I know any Shades? Fontaine needs the biggest rewrites, because this late in the game, there is zero reason to have as little lore as it does. Neuvillette should have his memory of the Sovereign vs Heavenly Principles War so that he can talk about that a little bit, and during the trial, it should be revealed that it was Naberius, the Shade of Life, whose power was used to create Fontainians. Since Natlan has almost no new information about the Sovereign wars as well, then Neuvillette must bear the burden of explaining that segment of Teyvat's history, and helpfully, with some 2D pre-rendered images so we can see what he looked like in the past while fighting some outlines of 4 women.
I also know lore. Nope, not telling you anything. Natlan is good. I wouldn't really change anything here, having Ronova show up is a big deal, and she comes at a pivotal moment. Her design is eye-catching and there isn't a very strong chance that she'll be missed, unlike the current mentions of the other shades. For Paralogism, however, I really dislike that Albedo casually mentions that Naberius has been subsumed by Gold and I also don't know how to fix it. Maybe he could draw parallels between what he's doing with mini durin and durin, and what Gold did with Naberius? "This technique is modeled after my Master, who used a similar one to combine herself with the shade of life, Naberius" and since she would've been mentioned in Fontaine earlier, that would make more sense to people. Then afterwards the Traveler can ask Venti about if Istaroth is okay, and Venti can be all mysterious and whatnot.
I liked you a little better when you were a ball of eyes in the sky.
By the time we reach this teaser again, no one should be surprised that the Shades are all women, and everyone should know who they are except for Asmoday, which I assume is still meant to be somewhat of a surprise.
Genshin’s big problem isn’t a lack of foresight- if anything, this shows how much foresight was put into the game. The problem is that it is utterly terrible at communicating that to its playerbase, and especially the casuals who don’t want to read books (I don’t blame them, they’re dull). This rewrite would hopefully bring the Shades into the back of people’s minds, so that they have something to fall back on when this teaser drops, and when Nod-krai begins to utilize them as actual characters instead of historical figures from thousands of years ago only mentioned in world quests and item descriptions.