[2.5] Morax, the Prince of Liyue - A Genshin Impact Rant-Theory

Just a some-what cohesive ranting-theory type thing that basically encompasses some of my lingering thoughts from researching Liyue's Lore for the Beginner's Guide video.
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*REFERENCES*
Tang Dynasty - www.britannica.com/topic/Tang...
Tang Dynasty - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dy...
Li Yuan - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor...
Fengjian - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fengjian
Enfeoffment - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feoffment
Diary of Roald the Adventurer - genshin-impact.fandom.com/wik...
Stone Tablet Compilations Vol. 1 - genshin-impact.fandom.com/wik...
Tiaras - genshin-impact.fandom.com/wik...
Seelie - genshin-impact.fandom.com/wik...

[@lwazinkasawe3887]

Ashikai: *losing her mind* Some developer at Hoyoverse: "I dunno, the statues looked cool, so I just got to copy pasting..."

[@Balbaneth]

Dev at Hoyoverse: Time to drop a random npc and some scriptures as lore dump in some corner of the map to drive theory crafters crazy in the middle of the current patch

[@leogrant4836]

Actually I remember one of them said that he wanted to make players think there were some stories in a relic, so he just put a broken statue lay under the water.

[@glamordil_chigyoraku]

But actually the developers foreshadow a lot, you'll understand if you read the cn text which is really hard to be translated perfectly. Quite a few of ancient allusions are used but some of them are absolutely unknown for non-cn speakers.

[@yama8124]

Tbh i'm never really sure what is Zhongli. We were told that he took form as half dragon half qilin, but saying it took form kinda imply it was not his real form. Now it is even just empty vessel in golden house. He is more often depicted in his human form since most written lore are after morax' reign. Unlike Ei and Makoto, his outfit in story cutscene doesn't seem very local for me, venti also like that and we dont even really sure if he's from mondstat. I feel like they were indeed has ties to the more ancient civilization.

[@rovanajean9550]

speaking of local, how come every place have its own thing? i mean sure climate can affect local fashion, but if celestia governs all why are they so drastically different? do they have a history before celestia came to power?

[@bissibo9542]

I think his real form is a shiny big golden rock, i know u will say wtf but many theories from Chinese players i saw proves it, still idk but it kinda cool

[@JohnCivor]

@@rovanajean9550 oh 100% sure that they have a different culture before the celestia take over.

[@skrrtskrrt2410]

@@bissibo9542 Can't wait to use him as a new geo burst for the Traveler

[@Do_High_Go]

@@rovanajean9550 Well, there was the whole genocide on the vishaps committed by the Primordial God/King. Also in previous videos there was a lore bit that stated the same Primordial God or an aspect of him destroyed the seven previously existing kingdoms and then??? the humans were made. So i personally think that, yes there was a preexisting history and probably a civilization of highly evolved Vishaps. My personal interpretations lead me to believe that the Archons, Illuminated Beasts (including Adepti and Yaksha) are actually descendants of those highly evolved Vishaps that were capable to build a civilization. The capability to use elemental energy without a Vision or Delusion is something Vishaps can do naturally, some even can change element on a whim. So with such high evolution rate, Vishaps could have evolved to not just be "magical dinosaurs" but change form into a Beast of their liking, be it a Serpent, Wolf, Fox, Crane, Deer or a 5 headed Sea monster. Of course there is the case with Venti, who started as a small elemental spirit, however if Celestians posses advanced knowledge, they could easily incubate a highly evolved Vishap Hatchling that was preserved in stasis and infuse an elemental spirit in it, to further enhance the elemental abilities to a point where they are so potent it appears as if it possesses the power of a literal God, you can call that process - Illumination since the elemental spirits initially appear as made of different color light to the normal people. I know what you are thinking, and yes, Enjou was right 😆 Every place has it's own thing, simply because of different beliefs, however, they are not that different if you scrape off the markings and ornaments. In fact, all ruins, Mondshtadt, Liue and even Enkanomia share eerily similar architectural trends if you look past the decorations. To me that seems like where Celestian architectural concepts ended, the rest was the regional flavor, personalized by the current rulers of the area. And of course if you send your genetically modified super soldier God like beings to terraform the land to make it more habitable for humans, you can at least let them decorate it to their liking 😉

[@thomasluffman8605]

Counterpoint: The ballista is not pointed at lisha, but the one convenient approach from the chasm as a final defense from whatever might crawl its way from that hole.

[@SonaTalks.]

just a counter to the counterpoint but I thought the chasm was created after the downfall of azhdaha which would occur long after the destruction of the guili assembly? edit: nvm I searched it up I'm sorry 😅

[@sylvarogre5469]

I had always just assumed the ballista was pointed at the Chasm. Then this video had me second guessing myself.

[@Ashikai]

but Azhdaha was in the hole....

[@TheCheeseman1983]

@@Ashikai Azhdaha wasn’t always in the hole. But this discussion seems premature, considering Chasm releases in a couple weeks. I look forward to all the fun lore we get from it!

[@Zarozian]

@@TheCheeseman1983 Agreed. It was a crater and probably a space-alien crawled out.

[@vonrich2614]

As someone who loves watching history videos both in depth and condensed (I'm looking at you OverSimplified) the moment you brought up multiple rulers in Liyue my first thought was "China fought itself many many times in history, I wonder if its based on that" before watching your vidoes I believed the game was a little bit of a historical fiction based on the Main stories, but after watching some I've realized it has other aspects like Greek myths and other beliefs mixed in as well

[@kuroo_nyanko]

Hey an Oversimplified fan! "This enraged his father, who punished him severely" 😂

[@glamordil_chigyoraku]

The base forms of Genshin history is actually mixed with myths and histories from different regions. You can find someone refers to King Arthur outside the Mondstadt city and a family whose names are from Scarborough Fair. In every region the cultural details are showed: architechture, clothes styles, and some special creatures like adepi and the Inazuman foxes, onis and tenngus which really exist in Chinese and Japanese cultures. And Enkanomia is based on ancient Rome (as well as ancient Greece), some players guess it's because Japanese understand ancient Roman & Hellenic culture deeply and some similar points are found in these two cultures. There're lots of other examples, like Xiao's design is a combination of Buddhism and Taoism, the BGM of Chasm use Mongolian music instruments, bcz there're some Mongols living in northern China and there's a long history between Mongols and Han ethnic (the main enthnic of China)

[@projectgreengamer]

It should be important to remember that the ruins in Liyue differ from the ones in Inazuma as the societies in Inazuma all live on islands, which can lead to more differing architectures. Since Liyue's societies are as far as we know, only separated by distance, and can walk to one another much easier than one could to a different island. This can play a role in how structures are built because work forces can be more easily outsourced.

[@ishakashikar9035]

Valid point. In the Mondstadt case of Decarbian and Andrius ruins, even though they are on the same landmass, not separated by anything (I know, the Andrius region was snow covered and high before but ain't the ruins of Vindagynr same all throughout the whole high and low terrain?) they are different.

[@brunetteartist2750]

Lmao i imagine they hired one architect who was just put in charge for all the liyue architecture and then the same workforce was used to build them

[@fluffy_magnus]

that is a fair point but Liyue is covered in mountains and such territory also affects architecture

[@ishakashikar9035]

@@fluffy_magnus so was Mondstadt before our dearest tone deaf bard severed the mountains, melted the ice to create the plains we see today. Though comparing Mondstadt history with Liyue one is inaccurate cause we still don't know the whole story of Lisha region and (the unreleased regions of Liyue, the village mentioned by Zhongli in the bartender event) there's still a lot we don't know, hope Chasm clears a lot of these points T^T

[@Elessiar11]

2.4 Interlude quest actually hinted at the Chasm threat, even in Shenhe's trailer we see abyss monsters appeared in the Qingxu Pool which is next to the Chasm. We also saw Xiao appeared near Mount Tianheng to guard the West of Liyue just in case anything would've happened. So the Guizhong's ballista point the the west only means they watch for threats from Chasm. Next 2.6 we'll go to Chasm...

[@ara_ara-]

Like the abyss gateway the trailer says the chasm is

[@randough5778]

I'd love to possible see more Xiao

[@janechen1943]

I think morax lore is a mix of China history. Why Liyue have a 3700 year history. That is dated from Shang dynasty. Why liyue peoples are commercial people, because Shang people literally means commercial people. And morax some times resemble the first two gods of Chinese legend right after the primoral one (pangu). Fuxi and nvwa (guizhong). Sometimes he forms a align with another tribe to become the ancestor of liyue (emperor Yan and Huang) sometimes he role play as the first emperor in Chinese history Qin shi huangdi,mercy less fighting in war and unify the currency (2000 years ago) . During his long reins, he began to take forms of wiser emperors such as in Han dynasty and Tang Dynasty. And for Guili assembly it’s resemble Shang dynasty map for me. In that way Liyue city is located in Shanghai where mihayo do

[@Ashikai]

Ohhh! That's really cool! Thanks for the explanation! :0

[@rekka6366]

Just a thought about all those Water Gods that Morax had to fight; they were probably all part of the same collaboration specifically because of the way one of the Travel Guides implies the karst landscape needs to be supported by the underground watertable to be at its current height - else it would have all been below the sea. This would explain why, now that all those Water Gods are dead, many of the ruins around Liyue appear to be sinking.

[@KoalaNoMarch]

Maybe they're called Yaksha statues because the Yaksha could manipulate them. Like.. the lion statues were used to protect some small villages and cities as small defenders that are little enough manouver through small paths and between buildings, but the large statues are also protectors... like the same premise as ruin guards, where the core is inserted into the head... but in liyue some powers can move earth instead of mechanics. So they were a defensive system used by the adepti.. while Guizhong's mechanical defenses were kind of new and innovative.

[@jonnychill711]

I once saw a video on chinese architectural culture and it talked about how cities are build not only with practicity in mind but also traditional rules that talk about how the wind should go throught buildings to balance good and bad energy, how shapes are important ecc, basically a lot of mistical biliefes and an interesting thing that they talked about in the video was a skyscraper with a fake cannon built on top of it pointing another skyscraper that held some company that got unsuccessful. The reason for the fake cannon was to "keep the bad luck away" from their activities and it also gave to the workes a psychological effect of being protected against the bad energy that the failed company gave off. Maybe with the Guizhong ballista it's a similar case, it's weird to think that only one ballista is there, so maybe it's more of a symbolic structure than an actual weapon of defence

[@kisa4748]

Interedasting

[@petiteange08]

Wasn't it mentioned that the ballista can function automatically and fire at surrounding enemies or something like that? Which is why the treasure hoarders wanted it destroyed? So I don't think it's a symbolic structure.

[@jonnychill711]

@@petiteange08 yes for sure, but don't you think just one ballista is enough? I mean for it to be a product of a god like Guizhong it's weird that there's just one imo, but maybe it's just that thete is one there and the rest are long lost, idk

[@petiteange08]

@@jonnychill711 Yeah I also wondered if there were others that got destroyed. I mean if it's just defending against treasure hoarders I guess it's enough, but if she expected to fight against another god or something similar I don't think it will do much.

[@andreguriev8960]

Could Guizhong have pointed the Ballista at the Chasm...?

[@dreamday988]

Or something that was coming out of the chasm? Seeing the 2.6 preview got me thinking a lot tbh.. god timeline is so murky in this game i wish they gave us some legit years to work with xD

[@fatuusdottore]

@@dreamday988 Seems palpable.

[@caranich23]

In our world, war is pretty bad for historical architecture and records, right? Maybe any ruins in Liyue from during or before the Archon War were completely destroyed, since Liyue was a very busy battleground of that conflict.

[@idminister]

I just traveled around liyue, and noticed 3 types of design in stonework: liyue harbor/golden house the squares [which is also guili, and the most common ruin type in liyue] and the precursor (jueyen karst domain, stone forest islands, liyue ruins near dragonspine, sal tarrae ,and ruins near qingce)(which also appears in other regions) mondstadt has 4 types mondstadt city (new) andrius tomb mondstadt city (old) precursor (thousand winds)

[@caranich23]

@@idminister I've always wondered about all the pieces of stone wall and such scattered all over Mondstadt. Are they the Precursor type?

[@idminister]

@@caranich23 the small 1-2 building ruins have no distinguishing markings. what remains of their structural stonework is most similar to the buildings around dawn winery and springvale. my guess is they were small homesteads that were overrun or abandoned, but most likely associated with the new mondstadt

[@glamordil_chigyoraku]

It's clear that there's an old civilization underground Chasm, maybe it's like the very early civilizations like Enkanomia

[@greenrain7587]

Im actually a fan of the liyue characters and the whole liyue and its story/design.. thank you for making this video!!

[@TheDeluche]

Genshin 2.6 update…underground city that’s upside down and associated with the abyss?…Ashikai Sheol theory confirmed?

[@lowellfranzz]

That ballista is aimed at the one true threat: The Cocogoat. Joking aside, thanks for this video! I can't wait to see the return of Liyue lore with the Chasm.

[@jikannomajo]

This is kinda off topic but I was always curious about the placements of the domain doors for all the events that we got to do so far. Especially when the domain door is in Liyue (i.e. Divine Ingenuity) because there's always a somewhat strong presence of old ruins. Even the windblume domain door in Mondstadt. I was guessing there's a lot of ruins below the water surrounding the city of Mondstadt. Lol.

[@guogary1102]

The Chasm has the Liyue’s unique Ruin guard, the Serpent hah😊

[@adamlopez2275]

I love you ‘little’ rant videos! Definitely a lot of food for thought.

[@borbborbb]

i always thought that the ballista was pointing towards the Chasm for whatever horrors might crawl out of it but pointing at other civilizations probably make more sense lmao

[@Wolf_Dominic]

I’ll say that he’s certainly an interesting character. As well as most other characters.

[@cdv3401]

Regarding the final question of why the Archons might seem to have to love Humanity, maybe Celestia sees them as farmers herding livestock, and in this case their farming Human Ambition? Idk

[@josearmandovalencia7349]

Ashikai is the real wisdom archon

[@aranara_song]

After watching the trailer for The Chasm, I think Guizhong pointed the ballista at it. There's some bs going on in there. Whatever the case is, this is super interesting. I'm super excited for The Chasm to drop!

[@Sakuyamon]

Actually, Andrius arena is probably same civilization as Sal Vindagnyr and the domains. The style you see there is viking art. I tried to look if there is a name for the viking art style but there dont seem to be.... anyhow, you can see the differense between Viking and Celtic by how symetric it is, celts liked their knots to be even, orderly and symetric, while viking tended to prefer wild and messy knots. There is a likelyhood that the styles influensed eachother since vikings traveled around and met celts. Interestingly... Venti and the four winds could be inspired by Loke and his children. Andrius being the Fenris wolf who would take on the challenges of the gods and was bound (which happened Andrius too), and Dvalin is Jormungandr or the world serpent (which make it interesting that Fischl, who seem to be inspired by Odin and Thor, fantasized about fighting him, since Thors destiny in the story is to fight Jormun). Venessa could possibly be the representation of Hel, the goddess of the underworld. Although that dont quite match with her eagle/falcon form... that would fit a representation of Freya who owned a cloak that turn people into falcons, but Freya wasnt one of Lokes children, just a goddess he interacted with now and then. If they are representations of those characters, it make it more interesting that Rosemary Rita in honkai keep a "fallen" god by the name of Loke and use a wolf, a snake and a hawk spirit to attack. I think the viking style ruins may belong to the Seelie civilization, which may be a post first god and pre archons civilization... the style had changed a bit from the "Hyperion" style but not yet diverged to many different styles. By the way, its unrelated... but i dont think Hyperion and original Enkanomiya was a landmass... it may have been a spaceship! The name Hyperion appears in Honkai, and is the name of a giant air warship. Andrius arena definitively predate him and the mondstadters.

[@jaimin7107]

Its 4am here but im always ready for some genshin theories... Tysm for such awesome content Theorist Angel~nim

[@dragon_nova_luna]

I LOVE THIS!!!! 🐉🐉🐉 wanna find out all of Zhongli lore there is *__* So we can assume he was a prince at least. there's some theories about being emperor too or having something to do with the Jade Emperor(king of heaven, had a few mythical beast by his side , including a dragon - there's also halberd story that kinda sounds like a jade emperor spin tale or at least it mentions a God King 🤔 - in which I still wanna know who the first divine halberd is that replicated itself and his replicas remain in the heavens - that book definitely tells a real story; its also funny that there's a mysterious figure in liyue that tells a boy the story of the moons) don't know/think it's Celestia he descended from, since we have seen the archons cutting ties and not liking the place(archon thing seems a position created with ill intentions, quite opposite from love for humanity) . being he's the oldest around, isn't there any chance he descended/got demoted unto this realm long ago, by maybe the first throne? or some other realm? or maybe he did something that made him demoted to learn a lesson? as you mentioned, doesn't enjoy violence but does jump in a fight, I'm thinking most times it was to defend, so I don't think he may had aligned well with Celestia's theorized wants and he seems kinda good himself, given he paired with guizhong, and did all that stuff for people, along with his adepti friends(heartening to see how much admiration he has for cloud retainer too). it's weird he doesn't really mention guizhong himself though. or at least not as far as I can remember. probably the loss still hurts a lot ;; his 6th constellation also fits his lore of making mora , Khrysos - bounty of dominator, Khrysos being a spirit of gold, and seemingly an obscure child of Zeus. Can't find much else about him. he guided humanity pretty good(some mistakes, some moral mehs , but nobody's perfect, he did do his best) , I just wonder why he called it a 3700 burden when retiring from the Archon position. was it a task given when he got demoted, and now is completed because humans in liyue can rule themselves or burden because of a contract or because of his role as archon?

[@The_Rational_One]

i think where he comes from is the original celestia. like he could be a shade of Phanes. since we assume he was demoted, it might be also the reason he is under so many restrictions (contracts) given upon him by celestia (the second one who came). it might be also the reason why he cant tell us anything abot the past, even though he knows kinda everything. i hope that one day, he will be the one to explain to us everything, or that we could at least see him in action!

[@dragon_nova_luna]

@@The_Rational_One yeah I thought this as possibility too, but unsure bc there's nothing to prove it with at the moment.

[@shadow-faye]

Could you imagine guizhong becoming archon and the ideals are: freedom, eternity, wisdom, justice, war, love and DUST

[@kattynia5956]

you mixed up the element and the ideal of the archon. Dust is the element of Guizhong, but what her ideal was personally not entirely clear to me. Wisdom was already with Rukkhadevata. But given that dust can be associated with earth, air and death at the same time (more than sand - hello to Al Ahmar), then perhaps her ideal could be the prosperity of the people or peacefulness. Something like that.

[@shadow-faye]

@@kattynia5956 no...she was the god of dust the same way havria was salt, that isnt an element there was never an ideal involved

[@tyronetalam8488]

My friend speculated that maybe the yaksha statues came to life during Liyue's most desperate times and the areas they were placed in were either areas where there are/were human settlements, and/or areas of importance like where magical historical artifacts were potentially kept or sealed, etc

[@VladimirCroft]

Every single day I go to your channel to make sure if u post-it or not , when I say I'm obsessed with your videos and your talent to speak i am , I hope this sounds right my English is not that good

[@D3A6]

Technically speaking, Ganyu COULD be Morax’s little sister, Morax is half Lin (Qilin) and half Dragon, Ganyu is half Qilin half Human. That’s my headcannon at least

[@godofthunder9765]

ooooo interesting

[@simpleyetcomplex]

Wait…when was this established?!

[@meltederaser376]

No...not really, they probably are different Qilin's not the same so technically speaking your headcannon isn't very technical

[@D3A6]

@@simpleyetcomplex during the rite of descention, Ivanovich states that Morax’s Exuvia takes the form of a half dragon, half Lin-creature (Qilin) in the Chinese version

[@skybattler2624]

Oh no... Then that means Ganyu has Onii-chan vibes towards Zhongli? Oh No...

[@Zarozian]

Yeah I feel like it was aimed more at what was crawling out of the Chasm and attacking them.

[@Ashikai]

I don't really know how that'd fit into the timeline though, that's the thing. Guizhong died before any known chasm activity...

[@Zarozian]

@@Ashikai Her ballistae would still be active even after her death. But perhaps there was something coming out of there while she was alive too. Then we hear about how the Chasm has Abyss Portal networks connected to it so perhaps there was an invasion from them in the past. Time might also be repeating itself Epic7 style and the Traveler the seed taken from the future and planted into the past like the Sacred Sakura. So this invasion might be the same one that happened in the past. ALSO, did you hear something about how the meteor that struck the Chasm somehow got up and flew back up into the sky?! Like what the heck! Is that what actually happened?

[@DNSchank]

You improved a lot on the editing and transitions. I can tell you had fun making the video.

[@vee64]

wow! videos like these make me question all the small details that look strange in genshin, if I had the time I'd just stare at buildings and probably cry because I can't understand what they're doing there and why they are in so good conditions after centuries hahaha

[@steel-man13]

I need this Zhongli skin in game >:(

[@willrisk1552]

Didn’t enkanomiya or Inazumma mention that the world was once al one civilisation?

[@kamiikitta]

I think the balista is pointing towards the chasm and areas that chasm connect to liyue , since zhongli also rescued xiao who was captured and used by a evil god did not belong to liyue and was from another region so i think the balista is actually defending from enemies that come from chasm

[@JDawg00]

Woah! Great start to a Saturday morning!

[@glamordil_chigyoraku]

Really glad to see that finally someone studies Chinese history bcz of genshin! (I mean in such a political situation) Your analyzation is really wonderful and some points are really fresh but reasonalble. Some of my opinion: "Empire" has been so long a positive symbol in cn history, until the weak ruling in the last dynasties. And most changes of dynasties are caused by revolutions if the current emperor sucks. As Thomas Hobbes' ideas, an empire is kinda stable form of natural ppl, so thought ancient Chinese. Sometimes they didn't like the emperor and therefore offered lots of suggestions to him. So it's not always a bad concept. About Morax: I think he's like that he didn't wanna fight against other gods or sth unless they attacked his ppl. He didn't rule them and they all didn't belong to a higher power, they're like natural gods. What caused archon war was the Celestia. About the base of Guizhong's history: It's more like the civilization on the He-Luo Plains, the source of Han civilization (the main ethnic in China). Bcz since Liyue is based on cn history, and Guili Assembly is terribly old as a Liyuen civilization, the Tang Dynasty is actually too "new" to be based on. According to Chinese myths, Emperor Yan and Emperor Huang ruled the earliest ppl. They had fought each other and Yan lost, so they became an allience. And those earliest ppl lived on He-Luo Plains. This civilization is kinda special: they lived on agriculture peacefully and seldom fought. But other ethnics wanted occupy their lands (which were really good for agriculture) so the Yan-Huang Tribe defended themselves. Many years later there were the first empires in China, that kind of empire that you described in the video. There were always wars with changes of the dynasties, a large amount of normal citizens escaped from the war-covered He-Luo Plains (relatively north) to the south, like Fujian and Taiwan. Some are mixed with the native ppl there and some retain their own traditions (these ppl are called "Hakka(客家)", the houses of guests), and they brought their inventions and technologies there, so the south became always richer, which is similar to the Liyue Harbour. About that Morax is kinda emperor of Liyuen ppl: indeed. The Chinese text of "Rex Lapis" is actually 岩王帝君, "岩王" means the geo lord, "帝君" means the emperor. Hope these can be helpful :3

[@glamordil_chigyoraku]

@@Lightark233 结合b站一个大佬的分析，感觉地理上像黄河（文明起源，但疯狂改道）与淮河流域（安徽一带的水系与碧水河非常相似），文明上像客家。不过最近茶王的故事又放出来了，这个结论以后可能还会变

[@karsten1926]

Love the consistant uploads

[@nicoleannefabian]

SCREAMS !!! SO EXCITED TO WATCH THIS I LOVE YOUR LORE VIDEOS SO MUCH

[@ryanossipo4047]

Just started watching your content last week and I have to tell you, you do such an amazing job with your theories and editing!! I love watching your Genshin content, you deliver such concise information on top of showing lovely displays and having lovely background music it’s all so encapturing! :)

[@sylvarogre5469]

I gotta look for videos on Cuijue Slope. Who made the 9 pillars and left that ring? And why can't I choose to keep it snd still complete the quest?

[@hiraya5296]

yeah the quest is so ominous. it was telling players something to the effect of "if you take this treasure, real bad stuff is going to happen." maybe bad stuff will happen but i gotta tell you, the gap between completing the quest and the update that brings all the bad stuff really kills the momentum that that quest builds up

[@owlkur]

@@hiraya5296 I still haven't gotten all statues to level 9 so.... haha

[@The_Rational_One]

it was definetly morax. pillars. but what did he seal there? and why wasnt it there?

[@cdlhanley]

the days when i didnt check ur channel is when u update and i feel so bad for not watching it earlier but i've been wating for this sm since u mentioned it on the stream :D amazing work as always , tysm ashikai!! ❤

[@jonathanwilson5355]

Woo! Just finished the video! I see you managed to piece together some of the things you were musing about in the livestream! Nice work!

[@sasha8578]

I love playing your videos while playing my daily genshin routine. Good good stuff 👏. It maybe redundant but oh well.

[@natandeeudomwongsa4187]

The various cuts and transitions between Yanfei, into pictures of ruins, and back into Yanfei are very well done! Bravo! I especially love the sequence of cuts at 7:14 !

[@EmperorMist]

Another banger, looking forward to the 2.6 speculation.

[@iamskr98]

Lighting fast speed as soon i see notifications 🤗❤️

[@petiteange08]

I thought the ballista was pointing at the Chasm... Interesting theory about a group of feudal adepti (?) ruling Liyue! I honestly never thought much about the architecture in game.

[@Axo.-]

Yes good content as always

[@TheBilayer]

Adepti is like fairy 岩王降居 means the" Geo Archon have descended to the mortal." The concept is like lucifer Archon may be celestial begin. But, due to some wrong doing the celestial realm, King is not happy and banished them to the mortal realm. I think Guizhong could still be alive. She may have ascended to the celestial realm. Guizhong has found the way back to the celestial realm, but Zhongli is still in the search.

[@TheBilayer]

My theory crafting skill is deteriorating haha

[@The_Rational_One]

actually it means that he was demoted.

[@Zarozian]

WHOA ANOTHER ONE AND SO SOON!!! YES!!!

[@thelingling504]

mini theories between the bigger hefty ones always good in my book :)

[@eggisle]

I dont undertsnad your videos but theyre good and i love watching them

[@va1tiel]

the west of Liyue was ruled by Azhdaha, his territory was from Tianqiu Valley to Qingxu Pool. is that why the ballista is pointed there? probably not, I'm not convinced the direction it's aimed in means anything, but this might be useful info for something later! edit: source for where Azhdaha ruled over is the translation of his battle lyrics. there's also a stone tablet written by one of his followers in the Valley that calls him a benevolent and wise king.

[@Ashikai]

...I forgot those were things. Thanks for the reminder!

[@The_Rational_One]

Azhdaha was still sealed in the earth when guizhong died

[@Jbeast37]

Love the p5 music. Such a great game.

[@Lightstorm786]

Alright so I see in the comments that people are saying Morax is half dragon half Qilin and I have a theory. In the 3 Realms Gateway Offering, Tsumi says something about the 7 dragon gods. I originally thought that just meant the archons themselves because Morax is a dragon but him being only half dragon makes me think something else. I think Morax is descend from one of these old Dragon gods that reside in Celestia and are pure elemental beings. I assume this because of what is said about the plane of light (Celestia)/ vishap plane and elemental energy. I haven't played through all of the event but I think it's a neat theory for who's up there in Celestia. Aka Big dragon daddies theory.

[@The_Rational_One]

those dragons are all dead. he is simply using a form that is threatening. like the vikings with their boats. he was the prime adeptus, which means he was the first and the others were ascended by him. which means he cant be half qilin, since that one is an adeptus.

[@heavenlyrequiem4019]

I love you and your videos

[@shops189]

Ik we’re all here for the very serious lore discussions but talking abt Guizhong and what you mentioned about loving humanity just makes me so sad 🥲

[@kingofthecubes772]

That idea you have about a prerequisite for becoming an archon being love for humanity reminded me of Dainsleif’s line about the tsarista in the travail trailer. Yknow the whole “She is a god with no love left for her people, nor do they have any left for her. Her followers only hope to be on her side when the day of her rebellion against the divine comes at last” thats gotta mean something right??

[@reneedemers8218]

Man, Guizhong would have been a really col Archon. I definitely get the impression that Zhongli would have granted the Gnosis to her if she survived... One wonders who had the balls to kill Guizhong while Morax was close enough to witness it, or if it was Morax for reasons regarding Contracts.

[@The_Rational_One]

Bro turned adeptus

[@arpankhan]

i can listen to her all day long

[@fatuusdottore]

He is certainly handsome enough to be a prince. ✨👌💕

[@core-experience]

Hi, I want to share some piece of mind on the Chinese line that described how the geo archon came to Teyvat. I want to explain it contextually, rather than deciding what translations are acceptable The way the term 降居 been used in literature, It is not heavenly. Many would often mistaken as it contains the world 降, which can literally mean decension. This connection is made apparent by looking at mythologies, in which heavenly entities would descend and meet the people on earth. However, there are other terms that are used to describe a visit of heavenly entity, for example: 下凡，降世，临凡 , these are terms used in mythologies that carried a "positive", "I am here for a visit how are you doing" vibe. To be exact, 降居 did not got coined from a mythology context, it is instead first used to describe the banishment of dukes and nobles to remote areas. In this context, the more accurate and literal translation of the term 降居 would be a "downgrade of house", paralleling the places the nobles used to live and where they lived after the banishment. My point is, if a person who has even a slightly deeper level of understanding on Chinese(old poetry and contemporary literature) should recognise the context of this term. The word would simply felt "negative" to such a person. Since I am quite sure the writers are Chinese, and received proper Chinese education (includes poetry and history), they should carry the same sentiment. Therefore, unless it is an honest mistake, I don't think this word is chosen without context, since if it were to carry a positive meaning, there are more suitable terms for that. It is most likely intentional. So I agree with you that there is of more "something" behind zhongli's background. Specifically, what he was doing before he come down to Teyvat. Even so, hey, this is a writer, trying to describe a fictional writer, that documented a fictional event, in a fictional setting. Maybe context of real Chinese play less important role here?

[@presmadagascar]

Adepti started making more sense when I realized they're just supposed to be xianxia cultivators.

[@Ashikai]

Yeah that's still a bit of a hard concept to wrap my head around cuz I'm not that well versed in it.... ahahah...

[@Nataninko]

I can't say that I understood all of that but ehhhh... yeah I'm going to leave it at ease until some point in the future.

[@staria.]

The thing i wanna know is.....who tf is our traveller and paimon

[@zephyr4170]

Thank you!!!

[@nara-yana]

[10:59] ~ [13:07] @Ashikai Well... This is were things start to get complicated: how can Zhongli be a "celestial heir" when he is allergic to powers from beyond Teyvat (as _"only power beyond the order of Teyvat is able to stain the power of Rex Lapis black"_ and stuff) and Celestia is "alien" to Teyvat, i.e. from beyond Teyvat? Unless you go through some brain gymnastics - [13:55] works - to put him as a descendant from the *First Throne* (which created the human realm, thus "native" to this world in a sense - like current *'Murikan* citizens lewl) who is "allergic" to the _(hello, darkness)_ invaders from the *Second Throne* ... but then, again, said darkness / *tainted blood* that Morax and the other *gods* (counting the Sea Serpents and probably even the Yaksha, Adepti, Youkai, yadda) can get corrupted by is what Gold used to create the Rifthounds, which are (together with pretty much all Ruin-Robot variations) classified as being *"alien"* in game - just like Celestia once was, and the second throne too (Mirror Breaker?), and... Ugh. I don't want to think about gods procreating with their mommies and eating their daddies liek... What? Wrong pantheon? Oh, ok. *edit:* ...So maybe Morax and the other "deities" are "descendants from Celestia", but I still think that it would make more sense for (at least some of) 'em to be _true_ natives of Teyvat (Sea Serpents and the such)... or, if Celestia is *Asgard* and Teyvat is *Midgard,* for 'em (Yaksha and company) to be from Vanaheimr or stuff (the Youkai from *Touhou* series would kinda be from Niffleheim and Hel, rite?), but hen again what is "alien" to Teyvat if you consider the multi-realm system from norse myth?!?! Also, Wasn't there a line from Azhdaha where he called Morax an *usurper to the throne* or something? I can't find it! Awesome work as always, Ash!

[@The_Rational_One]

the only line in which he called morax something was him being" the strongest of us". And it is more likely for him to be one of the shades of Phanes. And that one text "only power beyond the order of Teyvat is able to stain the power of Rex Lapis black".... it is strange, because that Black on the end seems to mean that this something else then rex lapis.

[@AthanaSus]

Amazing theory.

[@krys9463]

Zhongli, god of contracts and possibly adeptal royalty. Yet he still can't pay for his tea at the tavern, maybe our meat head is secretly a spoiled rich kid. 🤣(I can only imagine what being his boss is like)

[@kokomiyax]

i would love for you to do a video on yanfei, she's so underrated and cute!

[@Yvonne-Bella]

Just thought about something. Isnt the "God" the subjugated the Yakshas from Sumeru or the direction at least? To be clear, this is concerning the Balistas.

[@janechen1943]

yesterday I did a search about the decorate pattern appears in all Liyue ruins and modern buildings (jade chamber). It is a classical pattern called cloud and thunder pattern, dated back to Shang dynasty on bronze vessels. Mihoyo even deliberately make it bronze colour.

[@Ashikai]

:0 It has a name!?

[@janechen1943]

@@Ashikai it has name you can search it. 云雷纹. cloud and thouder pattern. it a continuous decorate pattern since Shang dynasty 3700 years ago

[@Nothingtea]

So at the very end of the Lantern Rite- after following Zhongli all over Liyue- he returns to the harbour and wishes you well. At the end of *that* he said, "I hope that each time you return to Liyue, sights such as these put your mind at ease. A safe haven between the mountains, a warm glow that guides you out from a dense forest." Maybe I'm reading too much into that but, well, where not but here to do exactly that lol Anyway! My theory is that Liyue and Sumeru had if not a long war than a very brutal one, and the Guizhong balista is pointed at Sumeru as a last line of defence

[@sigit2u]

I believe that Guizhong arrived on Liyue whom originally came from land of Sumeru where all the desert is and she was God of Dust if I'm not mistaken. Before her passing she gave Morax a puzzle in shape of geo cube that's Morax cannot open until now and keep it with himself and even used it during Burst move. So to connect with our real history, Chinese culture and civilization had been saturated with cultures from Middle East (Persia) and India as ones of the oldest civilization on earth. Just my 2 cents here😁

[@JohnCivor]

Maybe its not lisha that guizhong afraid of but whats on the back of lisha that scared her and it is the chasm and we know now base on the trailer of 2.6 that theres a portal there connected to the abyss and abyss monster are coming out of the chasm so maybe that or theres something more on lisha that we didn't know of.

[@susbedoo]

BigDhongZhong is special guys

[@janechen1943]

I remember other thing I want to commend. I also noted that there is a common decorate pattern in Liyue. The ruins in Guili assembly and the step way in tianheng mountain and jade chamber all have it. I think mihoyo deliberately use the same decorations to show it is a continuous civilization. Guizhong and Morax form a alliance before the united Liyue culture were born. Cause in mentality, Chinese culture were thought all from alliance of emperor Yan and Huang(Guili assembly). For a very long time in Chinese history research they thought it is single origin. Though dynasty changes but the civilisation is the same.And for the status of yaksha, it is Terra Cotta Warriors. It is specially associated with the first emperor in Chinese history Qin shi hungdi 2000years ago (which zhongli borrowed part of his story from) Those terre Cotta warriors were used to set around emperor’ tomb to protect the emperor or treasure in afterlive . And there is a big war last for hundreds of years before the first emperor got to his throne. It is the same time with the Acheron war .it is around 700BC to 200 BC. And celestia choose the winner as the king right. There is heaven mandate in Chinese history. The heaven choose the rightful king and his power depend on his rightful rule. Quite celestia Right.

[@HRVN_Dokuro]

Yan fei took over the Jade Chamber. Must've paid huge amount to Ningguang for the sake of background content. 🤣🤣 Watched your lore analysis from your first video. Thanks Yan fei.... I mean, Ashikai.

[@elementalwaterangel5451]

Morax! Let’s goo

[@janechen1943]

And one documentary to recommend. The first episode of PBS story of China. It is the story from goddess Nvwa to Shang dynasty

[@Ashikai]

Thanks! I'll see if I can find it. :D

[@janechen1943]

@@Ashikai you can find it in youtube. actually I recommended all six episodes. Since zhongli is more or less a mix of history.

[@gconjacks]

Zhongli is a decender?!??…..maybe 3rd?

[@idminister]

Another note: the common name for morax is Rex Lapis [King of Stone, or Stone King] which is latin, not chinese. All the other liyue archons have chinese names, and the adepti also have chinese names, just that their names are translated into english by meaning and not phonetics. On the Guizhong Ballista, the one facing west may not have been built by Guizhong, but could be a duplicate built later by morax after the move south with Guizhong being the designer of the original, or originally have been located in the north maybe with others G. Ballista [all built/overseen by guizhong] but moved south after the abandonment of guili plains.

[@justsomeguywithgreenhair]

Well the name for him used in the Chinese is Yanwang Dijun. The term Dijun is used for ancient chinese daoist deities. The fun thing is, Yanwang Dijun also means Stone-king sovereign, or King of stone. Idk why the english translation went with a latin name, but he has a name that's in chinese.

[@The_Rational_One]

@@justsomeguywithgreenhair and the fun thing is, that his original name is Morax. not Rex lapis. that is just the name given him by the liyuese people, since his reputation in the name morax is that of a brutal, violent and aggressive god.

[@justsomeguywithgreenhair]

@@The_Rational_One Indeed. Rex Lapis is an honorific title given to him by his peoples. Not necessarily because the name Morax's tied with violence but because his followers though calling their lord by his name would be disrespectful.

[@The_Rational_One]

@@justsomeguywithgreenhair when we first came into liyue, one of the peasants who told us about this name said that they prefer to call him rex lapis because of what he has done under the name of morax

[@TheBeardenedBear]

thank you:)

[@finnthefannibal]

This feels like that part of the epidose where the detective explains how they figured it out but it goes on for half an hour lol. It all comes together at 14:30 O_o My speculation is that Osail, Ghuizong, and Morax had an alliance but Osail broke it somehow. And that Zhongli was 'assigned' by the people of Liyue similar to how Orobaxi made a deal with the Enkanomiya people to protect them. From how I understand it, adepti are illuminated beasts that specifically protect humanity. And yakshas in Genshin's world are soldiers among the adepti and work under Morax. I think getting the gnosis was just an extension of his contract to protect Liyue.

[@wallyrosario654]

I swear I started playing persona 5 the other day and now everybody uses the OST as background music

[@Kill3rRAAP]

3:38 " I'm going to call them all Adepti" and then completely forgets to right after LMAO 🤣😂

[@Kill3rRAAP]

Also your voice is amazing 😍

[@Ashikai]

Ehehe...

[@adamtucker1896]

Hi, was thinking and if you consider that near the oceanid would be where guizhong could be from, and if morax is originally from gyun stone Forest, meaning that by settling in between would be a compromise, somewhere not to far from both the north and south, Lee weigh in both directions

[@The_Rational_One]

Guyun stone forest was made by his spears in the first place .

[@seanspringer2396]

This just makes me realize how little we know about the archon war. 😅

[@pravindkumar8095]

hey actually if you have played the new desert area world quest and know about liloupar then she says that she can turn into a yaksha aswell if the traveler desires it

[@uhhuh4989]

IDK, thinking too deeply about the area the Ballista is pointing at seems like a stretch, given that it was operational till a short time before the Rite of Descension (according to the Treasure Hoarders). Given that the Ballista was autonomous, it could have been pointing at the latest perceived threat before being deactivated, that being either the hoarders themselves or the threat of Azhdaha or the Chasm. (Was GuiZhong dead by the time of the formation of Chasm? Was there a threat from some Sumeru god, or maybe Xiao's Master, encroaching before the Chasm was formed?) I can't say for certain, but wasn't it stated by some NPC (or was it records of juyeun?) that the Stone Statues were built by people as an offering to the Adepti, along with food and temples and such? Anyway, I can definitely see the parallels of Tang Dynasty and LiYue. Great theory!

[@Ashikai]

...was it? I don't remember that, but I'll look again!

[@franzi7448]

woA I'm early :)) so happy haha

[@1crazyplayer430]

i know it's really not that important but every time you said fiefdom like fifedom my heart cried a little bit

[@Ashikai]

do you have any idea how many times I said "feet-dom" before I said "fuck it, it's FIFE-dom now"? it was a lot

[@1crazyplayer430]

@@Ashikai sounds painful and hilarious, bloopers when

[@Yvonne-Bella]

I still think the ballistas are pointing towards the Chasm

[@sharasatoru1597]

I want to know more about zhongli and liyue.... Whenever I look at liyue.. It always felt like abandoned place but peaceful......... But we know that abandoned places always has alot of history behind em........ But no matter what zhongli is good or bad.... I will alway love him and will be my Fav 😭♥️

[@zen8877]

Liyue lore >>>

[@evan-c2577]

sounds like the tale of the war of the 3 kingdoms in China

[@Atlas_760]

Could you try making a video about some speculations on the other regions such as fontain

[@Ashikai]

I don't have any interest in Fontaine yet. There's too much to cover in the three regions we already have and there's more coming...

[@asvestor5932]

What I imagine a normal conversation with Ashikai would look like between me and them. Ashikai: this might sounds like crack… but trust me it’s anything but crack… Me: ok… go on I’m listening. A: Zhongli is a princess!! Me: … A: … Me: *sigh* go on…

[@Ashikai]

PRINCE ZHONGLI FABULOUS HE ZHONGLI ABABWAAAAAA STRONG AS TEN REGULAR MEN DEFINITLYYYYYYYY he beat the galloping hordes a hundred bad guys with swords WHO SENT THOSE GOONS TO THEIR LORDS?! IT'S PRINCE ZHONGLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII~

[@Ashikai]

....if it wasn't clear, i'm much more likely to break out into song than to coherently present ideas when it's one on one.

[@The_Rational_One]

Prince* And in the text this word can also be translated to "son of the highest (in hierarchy) Emperor". SON.