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!
A place to belong seems to be the core theme of v5.8. Bennett discovered his Natlanese origins and reunited with his parents. Chasca was seen longing for her tribe by Mualani and had also been given a Grainfruit present by a wandering Qucusaur to show off her connection to them and then she also recounted the origin story of her tribe during the Archon Quest Prologue. And that Archon Quest Prologue featured the restoration of Ineffa's true memories and Natlanese origin. Finally Enjou explained the history of Tenoch and his exiled tribe, the Muratans.
So in the spirit of this summer patch let's help our firestarting frenemy figure out where he's from.
The biggest lore drop of course is that Enjou himself gave us a piece of the Lavawalker's Artifact Set but if you just look at that lore, it doesn't really tell us much. This is why nobody's come up with any theories about it for the last almost 5 years it's existed. Instead I think the more useful lore actually comes from the man's many aliases. His most prominent name and also the first one he provided, Enjou is written 淵上 which means "above the Abyss." On its own it really doesn't mean much. He's a member of the Abyss Order so it just related to that. (also Enjou could be written as 炎上 which is Japanese internet slang for blazing) However along with the Lavawalker blossom, Enjou actually gave us a letter as well. This letter was written by a dying Stanley that time he traveled to the Mare Jivari. Enjou had found him already mortally wounded and tried to save him by cauterizing them. The name he used then was Nocht which is a Celtic word inherited from Old English that means "nothing." You know. Naught. After that his next chronological appearance would be Enkanomiya as Enjou so we continue onward. He'd reappear all the way in v5.0's Huitztlan Tribal Chronicle under the alias Sanka which means under the mountain (山下) before finally appearing once again in v5.2's Iktomi Spirit-seeking Scrolls event as Kokuchuu (谷中) or middle of the valley.
Notice a pattern? Above, middle and under. These three aliases denote a position but what kind of position? Above the Abyss is the most obvious. He's already shown no true loyalty to the order and even if he had, the Abyss Order has been shown to not quite be the same as the Abyss itself, especially by Natlanese reckoning. Therefore above the Abyss might suggest he knows he's not quite consumed by its influence yet. What about "under the mountain?" Well there is actually a "mountain" in Genshin lore, at least with respect to its real world references. Sumeru is a mountain in Buddhist beliefs that holds up the world, pinned down to it by four pillars. (or how about four shades?) This would represent the false sky and as a damned soul afflicted by the Abyss, Enjou would be beneath the false sky. Finally there's the middle of the valley. A valley is the low area between mountains. If the mountain is the false sky then the next mountain over could be another Hoyoverse universe. Above the Abyssal Sea in the middle of the valley under the mountain universes of the Imaginary Tree. The question becomes what is that valley? It's still too early to answer that but we actually have one more clue. According to Citlali, Enjou introduced himself to Papar as "Hayne." Just like Nocht, Hayne is an older English word meaning "within the enclosure." We're looking for a space then that's outside of the Hoyoverse but not the Abyss aka Sea of Quanta. It's unlikely we're talking about space itself like where Skirk is from but what about the void that Venti sent the Mare Jivari to, a place that exists outside of time but across all time? Given that we now know both the forces of the Imaginary Tree and the Sea of Quanta can manipulate time, this world between both of them seems like the best bet. Again it's still too early to tell but that's my guess for now.
Another thing we can gather is that Enjou's been trying to figure it out as well. His aliases run from Nocht to Enjou, Sanka, Kokuchuu and then finally Hayne or nothing all the way to somewhere inside of an enclosed space. He's remembering more over time. On top of that he started out using a Germanic name and now he's back to using one after fixating on Japanese ones for most of the time we knew him, even investigating a formerly non-Japanese part of the game's Japanese region. If we focus on Enkanomiya then it could be that his lineage traces back to the unified civilization directly. Nocht of course can also mean night as derived from Latin which was the language used by the unified humans and Enkanomiya has the White Night and Evernight mechanic. (the fact that he's using Old English as an alias right now could suggest he hasn't quite figured out yet that he's from this period)
And so that takes us to the Lavawalker's lore. Back when it released in v1.0 there really wasn't anything there. It was just about a wise sage who had incredible heat resistance and couldn't even be burned by the Mare Jivari. However linking it with Enjou we may just have a little more. We've seen that Enjou is also very smart. He's well traveled and has learned much. He's also very much alone. In the Lavawalker's Torment the story states that Enjou was never afraid of the flames of the Mare Jivari but lost all those he cared about. If he was from the unified era then he is likely cursed with immortality. On top of that we know that unlike Khaenri'ah, his curse was just inflicted upon him and not the rest of his kin. What could have set him apart? Well looking at the Lavawalker's Wisdom we know he was actually apprenticed under a very jealous master who baited him to survive the Mare Jivari which he did and gained wisdom during the process. Could the transcendent power of time that Venti used on it have passed onto Enjou as well thus unintentionally cursing him with immortality compared to Ronova's actual curse? One final interesting note is that while the English describes it as "the anguish of being left alone without the disciples and family he held so dear burned away at his soul" the original Chinese actually described their loss with the words 冰冷火焰. His disciples and family were taken by a frozen flame. Could this "frozen flame" also be the result of Venti's use of time? We've seen "frozen" spaces before. Consider Deshret's Orchard of Pairidaeza. And then this connects it back to Enkanomiya again through Ei's original ideal of eternity being about stillness. Another name for Enkanomiya is the real world Tokoyo no kuni (pronounced Tokoyokoku in the game) or the Okinawan underworld, a land that never changes. Enjou's "curse" might just be that time has frozen for him. He's not immortal in that he can't die but since time isn't moving forward for him, he's just not aging.
So in the end what did we gain?
Enjou is potentially someone who comes from the unified human civilization and was a scholar of that era. His master was prone to jealousy and envied the progress he'd made so he challenged him to walk into the death trap that is the Mare Jivari, wearing the agate circlet he'd forged to be heat resistant. Over time the mysterious properties of the Ruler of Time that were imbued into the Mare Jivari by Venti made Enjou immortal and wiser than ever. (It could also be poetic that he only became "wiser" because the unique circumstances of the Mare Jivari allowed him to travel through time to many different key moments in history thus allowing him to witness firsthand the moments he brought up to the Traveler.) However the cost was losing all his loved ones to something described as the frozen flame. Much later on he'd forget everything (possibly a commentary on the limits of human cognition or possibly because of another curse like the curse of the wilderness that makes hilichurls incapable of higher thought) and assumed the alias Nocht when he discovered a badly injured Stanley. After failing to save him Enjou would leave the Mare Jivari and wander until he encountered the Abyss Order. Perhaps having remembered that he was cursed or having it explained to him that way because of how he described his circumstances to them, he also decided to oppose the Heavenly Principles and joined them. Accepting Abyssal Corruption mutated him into a Pyro Lector and gave him back some of his memories which led him to journey to Enkanomiya in order to learn more about the principles thus seeking the Byakuyakoku Collection. Failing that he continued to wander until he remembered his past in the Mare Jivari, possibly a long-term effect of Abyssal influence which counters the principles. And now he's back in the Mare Jivari, he remembers what he'd once said to his own people and he will eventually rekindle everything probably when we need to access the true Mare Jivari next summer.
PS: The curse could also have been a result of the Bakunawa given it apparently had its own "higher Abyssal" power over time separate from the principles. Considering how integral the Bakunawa is to the Mare Jivari, that it was the cause for Venti removing the Mare Jivari from normal time in the first place and that the real world Filipino Bakunawa is known as the moon-eating dragon (thus related to all the new moon lore we've been getting for Nod-Krai) it wouldn't surprise me if Enjou's fate will be related to it as it relates to the current direction the devs are taking the game. (btw the Bakunawa is actually consistent and respectful lore because the Filipinos are related to the Polynesians under the umbrella ethnic groups of Austronesia and Tenochtzitoc seems mostly related to Meztli, the Polynesian inspired tribe of Natlan)
Topic originally created on August 17th, 2025.
