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!
The knowledge we had that the dragons are just elemental beings like slimes and specters came from Nahida's Second Character Quest which also further established that in spite of humans in Enkanomiya believing that Archons were part of the Human Realm while dragons from the Light Realm, in fact there really isn't a Human Realm at all. The Human Realm is a fabrication by Celestia and even humanity itself was once elemental, explaining how some can awaken elemental powers which then warrants them a Celestial Vision.
But there's much more to the story now. I will be the first to admit I didn't like the outcome of the Fontaine Archon Quest. I found it to create implications that contradicted previous lore. However Natlan - while still riddled with its own potential plotholes - has followed through with some of this lore and I appreciate this new direction if it develops properly. I'm talking about Neuvillette returning to full dragonhood and that it meant he had total control over the Primordial Sea. The Primordial Sea is the lifeblood of Teyvat and is the origins for almost all life on the planet. Originally I didn't like this because it set a single Dragon Sovereign over everything including the power over life itself. How did a being as powerful as this lose to Phanes? How did seven of them lose?
Then in Natlan we got Phlogiston. Originally I had looked into the real world inspiration of Phlogiston and found it was just an outdated idea by alchemists for redox reactions. Alchemy is related to Khaenri'ah which was heavily influenced by the Abyss. Khemia itself is likely derived from it, the "power from beyond" that Dainsleif talked about in Travail. As such I thought Phlogiston would be something Natlan would need to outgrow to thrive. However the actual lore as we learned in Act IV was that Phlogiston is Primordial Energy. It is what elemental energy itself comes from. This then links it back to Neuvillette and the Primordial Sea.
What I'm trying to say is that the Seven Sovereigns while categorized under the same seven elements don't actually represent them at all. Neuvillette might be the Hydro Dragon Sovereign but the "hydro" in this context is the primordial version of a water-like substance, the lifeblood of Teyvat. And Xiuhcoatl the Pyro Dragon Sovereign likewise isn't "pyro" but rather the primordial fire-like substance or primal energy itself.
Using this interpretation we can actually figure out the others. Zhongli the Geo Dragon Sovereign (turned Archon, I'll get to that later) isn't just "geo" then. So what is primordial earth? How about the earth itself? Zhongli we know was 6000 years old at the start of this game. Gnosticism is a basis for this game. Gnosticism is an archaic form of Christianity which is derived from Judaism and Judaism believes revelation will occur in the 6000th year of Earth when Moshiach or the messiah will return and bring the world into the Messianic Age. Again Zhongli was 6000 at the start of the game and that was when we the Traveler aka the Fourth Descender began our journey across Teyvat.
Ok so what we have is the creation of Teyvat at the birth of the Geo Dragon Sovereign. As the game reinforces so many times, Zhongli is the oldest. After that we have the Prayers Artifacts Series and also Rene's theory about the Root Cycles which both state that primordial ice followed. We don't know yet what this might be. Could it be stillness or death, connotations we have about cold? Or could it be interpreted in spite of humanity as Hyperboreas was by the Greeks? Hyperboreas were mythical people who lived in the supposedly frigid and uninviting north but their home was actually warm and sunny. In this interpretation we could suggest primordial cold to actually be something like primal "heart" as in some nascent spark of hope that would eventually motivate everything else.
While primordial earth is uncaring and dead, primordial ice put the first thoughts of life into motion. That led to primordial fire what we now know as Phlogiston which created the elemental basis of Teyvat and then primordial water aka the Primordial Sea sprouted the early lifeforms of the planet all of which were elemental based.
Then we have another unknown, primordial thunder. Again we don't have that information yet just like with ice. However why did I say primordial ice was "heart?" Based on my Element Character Traits Theory Cryo is defined by isolation with an underlying sense of love. So going off of that what is Electro defined by? Well just look at Ei. She is imposing. As soon as she was revealed it was all about the power of the Raiden Shogun. But she's also really simple-minded. Yae calls her pig-headed. The girl single-handedly threw her own nation into chaos in order to prevent chaos and fell hook, line and sinker into a Fatui plot. Perhaps primordial thunder represents the growing pains of this new world and the harsh conditions early humanity had to endure under it. Let's call it primal discord, a force compelling life to become the fittest in order to survive. This then leads to primordial wind which is actually hope again. While primordial ice is the "heart" that provided a nascent spark of hope, primordial wind is a realization of that hope and the representation of life moving forward to survive.
Explanation: There are two points that I used to come to this conclusion for wind. First the story of Anemo is that of Decarabian being overthrown by Venti which was a shift from stasis with Decarabian sheltering his people behind a prison of wind to Venti freeing them to thrive in New Mondstadt. The second is the Chinese concept of the Five Elements. The elements center around Earth as well so it fits with today's theory. You have Fire, Water and Wood surrounding it and then the last element is Metal. However Metal can also reference Wind. By Chinese reckoning, too much of the Metal element causes arrogance and rigidity, like sealing your people behind a wall of wind. On the other hand a balanced amount of Metal produces intuition, resilience and motivates change and innovation which is what Venti did and what would be needed to survive through the adversity of primal discord.
Side Note: Also the idea that both primordial ice and wind are related to hope in their own way might have been hinted at all the way back in Mondstadt's Archon Quest where we know Venti did something during the Cataclysm that made the Tsaritsa hate him. Based on later information, Pierro being the first Fatui she enlisted and considering a possible reason behind Venti's personality of drinking and lazing around, it could be Venti gave up on Khaenri'ah and aided in its destruction which conflicted with the ideal of love in the Tsaritsa which as we know from Travail she no longer carries. Maybe the Tsaritsa continued to hope to save Khaenri'ah while Venti wanted to move forward and protect the rest of Teyvat. Both for the sake of hope but in their own way. And now both of them are scarred from the decision made that day.
And at last we arrive at the youngest of the Dragon Sovereigns, primordial growth. As Nahida told us about Apep, the Dendro Dragon Sovereign is a source of pure natural growth and her untimely death would have led to uncontrolled overgrowth.
Once they established themselves they would go on to either directly create the kingdom of Chichen Uctokah or inspire its creation by the Dragonlords. The etymology is a little iffy but Chichen is Mayan for mouth of the well while Uctokah at least according to the wiki might mean "seven burns" or what the game itself names the Land of the Seven Flames. (In English anyway. I'll get to that too.) This era would not be devoid of humans just not the modern humans under the Heavenly Principles. We can see that this is true from not only the Prayers Artifacts but from the Byakuyakoku Collection as well. After all accounts from both talk about when Phanes built its new world for "our" sake because the previous world was difficult for humans to live in. (Actually Natlan has a few pieces of peripheral lore that reinforces this as well.) This is the most ancient era in Teyvat where the elemental dragons reigned and elements flowed freely. As seen with the Elemental Specialist Namecard back then Phlogiston meant an innumerable amount of element types or in this interpretation, only a single type that can demonstrate itself in myriad ways. You can also liken this era to our own ancient era back when life was just starting out and natural selection determined what species continued to exist. Had we as modern humans lived back then we would not survive lol
We next enter the war between Phanes and the Sovereigns. We know Phanes wins and creates the Heavenly Principles under the Firmament. Part of that as I had predicted and now Yohualtecuhtin has confirmed was that Phanes took the Phlogiston and filtered it into the seven elements. It also elevated humanity as the pinnacle of life. Simultaneously it removed humanity's connection to the elemental world and only select few could rekindle that connection. To them it would bestow Visions which I had theorized was a means of keeping them from truly returning to the elemental world by artificially limiting them to a single element. One part of attaining gnosis in this game will be our characters unlocking their ability to use multiple elements.
Side Note: I had theorized this was why the Archons had to represent a single element and therefore dual-wielding ones like Andrius weren't allowed to become part of the Seven. And this is also why the Fatui value Childe who can dual-wield his Vision and Delusion and the Traveler who can freely use any they collect. At the same time could this be the real reason Phanes took offense to Egeria's Oceanid-humans? Rather than forbidding anyone else from creating their own form of humanity, could it be that Egeria's Oceanids being elemental beings meant her version of humanity could remind the rest of the humans what they really were? I had joked about this but Mona can turn herself into water as part of her abilities and I said Fontaine lacked Hydro allogenes because should one also have this ability, what if turning themselves into water met the same conditions of touching Primordial Seawater and they reverted to being an Oceanid? It was too risky to allow Egeria's humans because they might just peek behind the curtain and realize the truth.
With the rest set up Phanes moved on the sovereigns themselves. Neuvillette is a Hydro Character and his attacks are water-based. However he can control the Primordial Sea which isn't just water. Similarly I'd imagine Xiuhcoatl breathes fire but it should be able to fully utilize Phlogiston. (possibly explaining how Natlanese can which is part of my Natlan predictions) But remember Neuvillette couldn't manipulate the sea until he got something back from Furina's Gnosis: the "Archon Authority." In other words after defeating them Phanes separated this higher form of being from the sovereigns which lowered them down to fit into the seven elements under its Heavenly Principles. The first Seven were these diminished forms of the Dragon Sovereigns. Zhongli is the Geo Archon who once was the Geo Dragon Sovereign, his power taken from him and stored in the Geo Gnosis. And when some of them wouldn't abide by the new rules, the threat of Phanes forced them to hide like Decarabian behind its storm barrier and Xiuhcoatl who faked its own death or really die like Neuvillette and Nibelung.
Ok so I think that explains the Seven Flames part of Chichen Uctokah. There were seven major parts to Teyvat's creation which were then forced through the Heavenly Principles to fit into its seven elements. Seven Flames is a name that predates the modern elements. But what about Chichen? As previously mentioned it doesn't actually mean "land" but rather "mouth of the well." What well? Why its mouth? Going back to my idea that Zhongli started it all by being the literal planet itself upon which everything else could form, this is the Polarian Root Race under Theosophy which Rene's Root Cycles in Genshin are derived. Rene came up with only four cycles but Theosophy actually has seven. Hyperboreas would be a period following the births of the Seven Sovereigns and when Phanes first made landfall. But before Hyperboreas was Polaris which is Latin from the base word polus or the endpoint of an axis. Couldn't a well resemble a hollow axis? Wouldn't the mouth of it then be one end of the well? And a hollow axis could also be described as a cylinder which is oftentimes the depiction we use for the timeline of the universe from the Big Bang. So Teyvat's creation would be one end of that well, the one at the bottom and the point when Chichen Uctokah was established would be the present to the Dragonlords, the mouth of that well. Taking it from this interpretation, the Dragonlords named their kingdom after the culmination of what the sovereigns created since the beginning of existence. It respects their foundational power.
So finally we need to put that stuff aside because Uctokah and Land of Seven Flames has nothing to do with the kingdom's original Chinese name. Chichen still does though. In Chinese Chichen Uctokah is actually called 奇琴乌图 and 奇琴 is the transliteration of chichen. Uctokah though is replaced with 乌图 and unlike the English, this term does have a direct translation. 乌图 is Uttu the Sumerian goddess of weaving. Her name may actually mean loom. You know like Loom of Fate. Rather than a seven reference like in English, could this name actually reference the ongoing lore about challenging fate? The mouth of the well is still about where Teyvat originated and how far it's come but this Uttu thing might be talking about the natural destined trajectory it was on which was then of course undermined by the Heavenly Principles. We are now working on overthrowing its version of fate along with several other parties like the Archons/Dragons, Fatui and the Abyss Order. Therefore could the idea behind the Loom of Fate, which we know from the Caribert Dainsleif quest was around as far back as Khaenri'ah have actually started from "Uttu?"
We know from Apep that Nibelung used Abyssal power in its counterattack against Phanes. Khaenri'ah also used Abyssal power. I have a theory that perhaps Nibelung influenced Khaenri'ah to follow the Abyss. As such it wouldn't be a major leap to say he also gave them the mission to create the Loom of Fate and reshape Teyvat's fate back to what it should be, to bring back the natural order of "chichen Uttu."
There is one last note and then I'm done with this one I promise lol. Ix Uxul Tz'ib Bolon Ch'ule-L is the Dragonlord that ruled Chichen Uctokah. Her name which is made up of Mayan words is broken up like so: Ix (female) Uxul (ending) Tz'ib (writing, painting) Bolon (nine) Ch'ule-L (thirteen parts of the individual soul) I think we can take it together to mean something like "she who paints the nine of thirteen parts of the soul in the end." What in the world is that supposed to mean right? Well Natlan's tribes are actually based on another thirteen part thing in neighboring Aztec religion, their Thirteen Heavens. I've actually brought this up in my Natlan predictions too. So why nine? Why not thirteen? Well as my predictions went, of those 13 heavens 8 of them were the names of the tribes which at present we only have 6 remaining. The missing 5 heavens actually represent something else. At the top you have Omeyocan where the gods of duality exist. This is the Imaginary Tree and Sea of Quanta, the beings at the very top of the whole Hoyoverse. Under that you have Teteocan which is the domicile of the four Tezcatlipocas or if we take that four in a Genshin direction that would be the four shades of Phanes meaning Teteocan is Celestia. The layers in between Teteocan and Nanatzcayan are translated in ascending order the region of white, yellow and finally red or to put it another way albedo, citrinitas and rubedo which Rhinedottir believes will allow humans to ascend to godhood. So the "nine" would be the 8 human tribes that were present back then along with combining the divine heavens into one. She is meant to paint this in the end so that could have been some original intention until the Heavenly Principles upended things. This concept could have also added into Nibelung's Loom of Fate suggestion to Khaenri'ah.
There's actually a little more but I think I'll save that for another day.
Topic originally created on December 8th, 2024.
