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!
(This theory was originally put up on reddit. It's long and there's a ton of ground to cover so I've added a summary at the end. )
My my miHoYo is sneaky. A long long time ago we were just about to get Sumeru and I'd been theorizing about what we'd get in this new region of Wisdom. One thing I realized was that it would have been the perfect time for miHoYo to play us and play us good. We know it now; there are plenty of Sumeru scholars that are a few sandwiches shy of a picnic with the research projects to match. So I proposed that miHoYo would use Sumeru to give us tons of wild gooses to chase as we try to figure out the story. And while Sumeru's become a distant memory I don't think miHoYo's let up on this idea.
Here's an example. Erinneyes is the name of the island where the Opera Epiclese is located. But Erinneyes is also the name of a historical figure in Fontaine. Or is she? Getting ahead of myself. Erinneyes was one of the Lochknights who were loyal followers of Egeria even during the era of Remuria. They opposed Remus and once Remuria fell they sought out the "Holy Grail" that Egeria had been sealed within by Celestia, bringing her back to Fontaine.
Back when I was doing my review of Fontaine's Archon Quest I brought up the issues relating to Egeria and someone brought up Furina's signature weapon as evidence to resolve some of the issues. I forget exactly what point it was we were discussing but I explained that the weapon can't be used as definitive evidence for anything. If you'll read it miHoYo was really clever about it. The lore the weapon supposedly provides comes in two versions with different events. So which one is canon? Since we can't tell we can't really use this on its own.
Actually Erinneyes herself is mentioned in this weapon's lore, in both versions in fact. The sword was her weapon. So I took a look. There is not a single source about Erinneyes that is historical as far as I can tell. She's a Lochknight right? In the Silver Goblet of the Pristine Sea we are told "the Lochknights swear by armor of silver, to protect the spirits born from pure water, to protect their fellows who also keep faith in the one true font, resisting the omnipresent golden power that blotted out the sky and outshone the sun." But right after that we're told "But that is an ancient legend..." In the Denouement of Sin Artifact Domain's description we're told that "Legends say" the Lochknights exiled themselves with the Oceanids in an attempt to resolve the prophecy.
And it's at this point where I noticed something. So Erinneyes has a whole book chronicling her history. La Chanson d'Erinnyes tells of how she refused Remus in much the same way Gerard Butler refused the Persians. In a movie. It turns out chanson comes from the chanson de geste a type of French poem. As the wiki lists out, there are many inspirations taken from real life chansons that were featured in this Lochknight's story. And unlike most books in Genshin this one gave us chapters and parts, like a typical novel. Actually the only part of this book that isn't fictional is the names of several French-related regions conquered by Rome. Remuria is related to Rome and Fontaine is related to France which used to belong to its empire. We do have someone who is definitely historical and who comes from the same tribe as Erinneyes and that's Cassiodor so we do know for sure at least one of these tribes did exist in Fontaine's history.
But that was old stuff right? In v4.3 we got a whole Artifact Set dedicated to Erinneyes. Except look carefully. "An ever-blooming flower shaped from larimar and shimmering silver. They say that this is still viewed as a symbol of resistance." "A formal hat that was once in vogue amongst creators of opera in Fontaine. Word has it that its feathered adornment was based on the legendary helms of the Lochknights." They say? Word has it? O and here's one more. "An opulent vessel made based on the form of the legendary "Pure Grail." It is said to be able to fulfill the wishes of the purest of people." The grail. That same grail spoken about in two different versions of Furina's weapon which supposedly belonged to Erinneyes? You're not going to find this phrasing in any of the other Fontaine Artifacts and I didn't check all of them but the ones I did were very matter-of-fact too. I mean Crimson Witch of Flames? Definitely stuff that belonged to her. Opulent Dreams? All stuff belonging to Scara. We even know that the Nymph's Constancy hourglass is Alain's pocketwatch that was used by Jakob when Rene turned himself into Narzissenkreuz sludge. At best there's the Faithful Hourglass that reads, "A sand timepiece that the witch relied on in the story. Legend has it that if you recite the wrong incantation over it, time will suddenly flow exceptionally quickly." But notice the difference. There's no question that the witch used it. The legendary part is about some consequence of misusing it.
That last Erinneyes one got me thinking. "Based on the form" of the Pure Grail? You know another word for that would be a prop. Actually wasn't there a play about the Lochknights? "Mounted Python & the Pure Grail?" Yeah it was attended by a Mr. Poitier who cried like a baby after seeing it. There's a real world Poitier too. Sidney Poitier, a film director. Film.... We just had a film festival in Fontaine didn't we? What was that one about?
Xavier: The Fontinalia Festival was established to commemorate the legendary Lochknights who went on a quest to search for the Oceanids, and eventually welcomed the Hydro Archon Egeria.
When we got this line all the way back in the livestream I predicted that this was all we'd get. There would be zero actual story in this event related to Egeria and the Lochknights. But I had some fans and comments suggest that this would clear up most of my issues with the Archon Quest. So what did we get? [Was there any deep lore about Egeria or the Lochknights?](https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/The_Crack_of_Muskets_Breaking_the_Silence_(Quest%29) No it was literally just this line from the livestream. It was less. Even the award wasn't the Egeria award. It wasn't the Erinneyes award. It wasn't even the Lochknight award. It was the Furina award and the girl even managed to finagle Halloween stuff into it. Speaking of, I briefly referenced it earlier but the Circlet from that Artifact Set? "A formal hat that was once in vogue amongst creators of opera in Fontaine." It's based on a hat worn by opera creators. "Word has it" that it had anything to do with the Lochknights.
Yeah the bottom line is as far as all of the information we've gotten about this, Erinneyes is a fictional character. Who knows? Maybe the Lochknights themselves were fictional and the term is just a stand-in for some real life group or groups of people that had opposed Remus back then. In fact they don't even have to have any loyalties to Egeria at all since the stories were likely written by anti-Remurians during Egeria's run as Archon. Biased accounts of history is something else I've brought up before. That's why there's a prop being used as an Artifact. That's why a book series telling the story of Erinneyes is based off of epic poetry. That's why there are two versions of that story in Furina's sword. It's two drafts of the Erinneyes tale. Furina is an actress after all. It makes sense she'd also wield a prop for a weapon.
Now you might be thinking we still have a real place named after her. That must mean something right? Actually naming a place after a fictional character isn't unique. Rome did it. Introducing Herculaneum the Roman town supposedly founded by Hercules. Or let's go a little more modern with Ulysses, NY a little town in New York State named after Odysseus the main character of Homer's The Odyssey. And right next door to it is Ithaca, NY named after the island Odysseus supposedly ruled. The existence of this island is still subject to debate. (And no it's also debated by historians if modern day Ithaca, Greece is the same Ithaca or if it too was just named after it.) Actually as soon as we learned about the island of Erinneyes I pointed out how fitting it was that it housed the Opera Epiclese. We might better know the term Erinneyes from our English name for them, the Furies. They are the Furies of Greek mythology and in the Oresteia they became the Eumenides changing from beings of vengeance to beings of justice in a story that explained the Athenian legal system.
So going back to the point of this topic I've been seeing plenty of mentions about things just like Erinneyes and the story of the Lochknights in other people's theories, things with only legendary sources. The wiki treats Erinneyes as fact too. It would seem miHoYo has successfully gotten us to fish for those red herrings. But that wasn't their purpose either. Here's a line from Wriothesley's lore:
Once all embellishments were removed, what still remained were the actual things he needed to take note of.
They aren't doing this maliciously or anything like that. It's actually part of the Genshin story. You know how I've been saying there's a reason why it seems everybody's plans in this game keep falling short of getting the job done? Gnosis isn't meant to be easy and our main character is the fourth attempt at getting it right. Even their own twin failed. I think that just like in the game where we have NPCs that have followed the wrong path miHoYo wants to spread these breadcrumbs that lead to nowhere to point out how easy it is to be led astray. (and I'm not trying to say I haven't been fooled before too) In fact many of Sumeru's quests were about this too. Think about the meaning behind the Akasha, Moseis and his dream world and Alhaitham's Quest.
I will say this. When I put out a theory I've done the research to the best of my ability. I open up discussion for the sake of checking to see if I might have missed something which could then lead to a much better theory down the road.
Topic originally created on February 17th, 2024.
