How Tingyun’s fate breaks the fantasy of Honkai: Star Rail | Reaction and Analysis

Character death hits different in gacha games.
A video about Tingyun’s death in four parts:
00:00 Introduction: On Characters
00:48 Part 1: On Tingyun
04:26 Part 2: Is Character Death Appropriate for HSR?
07:36 Part 3: Gacha and character death
13:40 Part 4: Non-canon Adventuring Party
16:38 Conclusion: She's dead, Jim
I used three pieces of Tingyun fanart in this video I want to credit here in order of appearance (you'll have to copy and paste cause this channel is too new right now):
www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/110...
www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/110...
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if you made it all the way down here can you please like or comment or whatever so more people see this thing holy cow do you have any idea how long this took me to make i just want people to see it

[@marfit77]

I feel Tingyun's "death" was supposed to be more of a reveal than a loss its a reveal that the Tingyun we are traveling with isn't who everyone else says she is

[@bloody4558]

I greatly agree. This is not Hoyoverse first or second game, it's their fifth, at this point no one commits the mistake of killing characters for shock value. Specially when they are experts at dramatic deaths, with three of their main games using these element.

[@silverhawkscape2677]

​@@bloody4558Except it felt more shock value. I didn't care she was dead because we just met her. The fact the Tingyun we knew wasn't her makes it worst. She's a Non Character and Unworthy of caring.

[@ElPolloLoco7689]

@@bloody4558 The problem is that it was SOLELY for shock value, the plot would be the exact same without her dying; and they made no effort to make her death feel impactful afterwards.

[@bloody4558]

@@ElPolloLoco7689 Sorry but that is utter bullshit. If it was for shock value she would've been declared dead then and there. But she is not. Much on the contrary, aside from player headcanon, the game NEVER confirma her death. Every single character involved states that the one we saw die was literally a fake, and it's easy to confirm that because her body dissolves into the air. Shock value DOES NOT WORK OFF SCREEN. Shock value only works when it's explicitly shown to the viewer/reader/player. Which means that her disappearence itself holds value. Her own funeral brings more info on who her real self really is, this is far more indicative of her life than her death. I can't fathom why would anyone think she's dead

[@ElPolloLoco7689]

@@bloody4558 I do agree that she's VERY LIKELY to not be dead, but shock value still applies here. They took a playable character and "killed (?)" her right in front of us in a sudden way. That's shock value. And as a non-Hoyo fan ? This shows me that they do not care about, nor respect thier characters in the slightest; which tells me that getting attached to characters is a mistake. Not getting attached to characters means the story isn't fun to follow. I only cared about the story, and will actively criticize Hoyo from now on until they prove me wrong.

[@Ginjabreadman17]

I can absolutely agree with a lot of your points and feel for your plight, but I can only imagine this was an unfortunate consequence of being raised on Genshin Impact instead of Honkai Impact so Hoyo's hidden dark side behind smiles and feel good vibes was not at all surprising to me seeing the form it took in Star Rail.

[@leka2095]

bros when there is honkai in the star rail

[@Yami-mugoni613]

As a genshin player….we have character like qiqi and xiao that deep in the dark scary side

[@diablosjupi]

I was thinking the same thing, they are making so many comparisons to genshin but had they played Honkai Impact, they wouldn't have been as shocked and they would have known a little better what to expect

[@RaE7Vx]

No way you think everything is happiness in genshin... Tingyiun dead is just bad because she alive or not, didnt really had any impact in the story you can't really compare it to any death in HI3.

[@diablosjupi]

@@RaE7Vx genshin is definitely not all smiles and roses, but it does have a more serious tone most of the time and it hasnt dared to kill any of its playable characters in the many years it has been out and updating. the day a playable character dies in genshin i will be surprised (not mad though). I just think it's naive to expect star rail to follow genshins' steps and forget hoyoverse has other games as well. In my opinion, it's following honkai impacts steps (they do have a ton of similarities, heck, even the name is in there) but even so, it would be best to just let it be its' own thing. on tingyun's death though, maybe SHE didn't go by doing something heroic, because she wasnt really there from the start, but it was actually a huge reveal, it was an (awesome) introduction to a villain, but she did leave a mark, it was a warning to us players, that not everything is always how it seems, that we can be deceived, and that we need to pay more attention when interacting with other characters because not everyone can be trusted, not even if they are playable characters

[@astraySparrow]

As a fellow Tingyun enjoyer I disagree with this take. As a matter of fact, her death made me appreciate her even more. And on the "there is no death in the comedy" is the shallow take if I ever heard one, the cushioned even, there is a lot of death and tragic events in the comedy, death in the comedy makes the atmosphere pop and steam with flavor. The word you're looking for to describe is what you want is not "a comedy" you want "fluff" for everything to be lighthearted, sweet and devoid of stress of existence in the unforgiving world.

[@Larkian]

Reminds me of some anime (at least 2 right now from the top of my head) that do a 180 from comedy with slice of life to a depressing scenario where it leaves you with mixed feelings but a in a more positive way.

[@astraySparrow]

@@Larkian I think it's in general hard to remember a comedy movie/anime/book there nothing bad happens? you need some downfall in the story for the jokes to feel fresh again, you just can't keep amplifying positive emotions more and more, at some point they just don't feel like anything. But like this take is funny on the degeneracy scenario too, for the game which doesn't even have any bond or friendship mechanic, you have never been promised you can make any meaningfully emotional connections to any of the characters present, you just experience the story ... as it is. But this is, some Azur Lane brainrote on the display.

[@liteyearsx]

I went down to the comments to make this very claim and I'm glad to see it's one of the top comments. I immediately became at odds with the video when it was stated "It's a comedy" as if there was no bad thing ever in comedies. Hell, even 70's - 90's sitcoms talked about very serious topics and has good drama. It's a very uninformed take of how the comedy genre works. I also think it's just outright wrong to call HSR a comedy in the first place. It's a drama. Yes, the main travelling group APPEARS to take things lightly, but the game straight up tells you that March 7th, THE comedy character, uses that personality as a mask to hide her tragedies. The only one who is genuinely quirky is the MC him/herself, but even the MC takes serious moments very seriously. That said I understand that a favorite character dying affects people in strong ways, and I'm not going to downplay that. But all of this seems self-inflicted.

[@frousteleous1285]

@@liteyearsx This! In fact, you almost can't have comedy without tragedy. They go hand in hand. Constant "fun and comedy" in story really starts to get old. These characters have no meaning without strife. Naturally, there are various levels of strife.

[@astraySparrow]

@@liteyearsx yeah, I also agree about the whole situation being "self-inflicted". While many gacha games sell the fantasy of having a girlfriend, which they do in many various ways like having a character to greet player at the starting screen or having designated hang-out spots, gifts mechanics and many, many more, HSR is just not one of them. HSR is colder in that regard to the player, which is fine quality for a more adventure-story driven game, while players still form attachments to favorite characters, I don't see Tingyun’s death is a fantasy or immersion breaking, the whole thing happened withing the confines of the story and there were plenty of leads and hints that something is off about events leading to it. Interestingly enough, Himeko from Hi3 is largely known due to her death in the Hi3 story and what emotional impact it had on the community as a whole. So I don't buy the argument "if your favorite character dies, it breaks immersion" either, even if it's a gacha game.

[@triopsate3]

Saying HSR is too lighthearted for death is rather disingenuous given that even without Tingyun's death we've already witnessed like a dozen other people drop dead or in fates worse than death during our journey. HSR takes HI3's approach of having this nice shiny coat of happy waifus painted on the outside to lure unsuspecting fools in before revealing that they just got jebaited with agony and despair. The only new thing they did for Tingyun was raise the stakes from a NPC you meet to a playable character which is a bit of a jump but hardly the massive contrast between space comedy to tragedy you mention because it was pretty obvious that despite the MC being a trash raccoon at times, we weren't in for a sunny joy ride.

[@eastonair]

Thanks for watching and for your thoughtful response. “…before revealing they just got jebaited with agony and despair.” The game isn’t even really full of agony and despair. Even in Ting’s funeral quest you have the option to lie about her fate and eat the offerings Yancui and Mengming give you. Cocolia’s death is totally brushed aside by the Express crew. NPC/Villain death and playable character death are quite different. I don’t personally expect that they will be killing off many more characters. Even the “dark” HI3 really only kills Himeko and the Elysian Realm Flame Chasers, most of whom were already dead to begin with. I could be wrong, though. Can only wait and see.

[@triopsate3]

@@eastonair HI3 also killed off Wendy and Otto as well as quite a few others.

[@eastonair]

@@triopsate3 Sorry I was talking specifically about playable characters, not NPCs.

[@idminister]

star wars, the original episode 4, was a space opera-comedy....but everyone took it super seriously

[@AzureDrag0n1]

I guess killing Bronya's mother is not dark enough. All the soldiers dying to fragmentum. How about that child that was taken advantage of by some bureaucrat, got blamed for his deeds, then killed. Belobog was pretty grimdark.

[@Koipur]

Tingyun's funeral quest feels so at odds with itself. Under normal circumstances, the whole reason you'd want to put a funeral in a story is to give closure for the character, so we can all move on. But it would be weird to have Yukong and Fu Xuan talk about possibility of the real Tingyun still being alive somewhere if we weren't going to find her. Like, why put that dialogue in at all if they have no plans to bring her back? It could be that Hoyoverse doesn't even know what they want to do with her in the future yet. Ultimately I think the biggest dose of hopium is that we never got our jades from receiving texts from Tingyun. Would they really make her the only character that doesn't send you the messages/jades for pulling her?

[@eastonair]

She DOES owe us those 15 jades you are right.

[@shinoayumi8673]

As a Honkai Impact 3rd player I can say I somehow expected that. Honkai Star Rail is following some points of Impact 3rd, she'll probably won't be the only one. I'm just sad that Tingyuns death wasn't as emotional displayed as some others over in Honkai Impact 3rd

[@SirZelean]

They SURE know what they're doing with her. You've no idea how much planning devs need to get in place before they even start making the game. Look at Genshin as an easy example, there are hints from lore and story event from things happening today that have been in the game since day 1.

[@aboutme7810]

I think real Tingyun is not dead yet.

[@elixxon]

I believe being at odds with itself is exactly the intention. There is so many things off and suspicious about how it happened, and the only reason we are holding a funeral because nobody has any clues to go off of to search.

[@derHallen_Ch.]

Tingyun's death seems to line up with Wendy's death from HI3rd, a side character you come across early on into the story, she gets dunked on (but not dead yet), and the missions after that are very goofy with the Exchange between Kiana, Theresa, and Himeko. But after her death, the tone shifts starkly. From the looks of it, Tingyun's death was a step to get us to be aware that stuff like this can and will happen, instilling a suspense people from Genshin will need time to process, and a welcoming familiarity for HI3rd folks. Da Wei has a funny sense of humor too, saying, "“Your support has enabled us to keep writing positive and wholesome stories”," when in regards to Hi3rd's storyline. I wouldn't be surprised if Star Rail implements more ironic touches into its events, looking forward to March 7th's turn to get impaled and probably triggering the equivalent of Kiana turning herrscher. Star Rail from the looks of it will set up a tragicomedy, as we progress this cap between lighthearted and heavy elements will lessen, ending in either one overcoming to other or becoming sickly intertwined. This world has nice moments, but we can't pretend that the obvious dark side doesn't exists.

[@Savvv18]

Her funeral quest was such a drag for me, why are we, the player, griefing over someone where have never met, or got to know personally. Hearing from her friends was nice but like, why are we prepping it

[@wongo6828]

After finishing March 7th's companion quest, I realized that Tingyun could still be brought back in form of memories, I hope Mihoyo makes a companion quest for Tingyun where they used memories to explore Tingyun as a person, actually show to us why she was loved by so many before she was tragically taken out. It would not make her character feel wasted and it would feel more like a proper farewell instead of that soul-soothing ceremony.

[@not_pandasite]

^this, I made a comment already but I feel like hoyo has a maaaaassive opportunity to have future Tingyun content be like Ai's in Oshi no ko. I wouldn't really have cared about Tingyun as a character at all if she wasn't gone, but now thanks to this mystery of who she really was I'm super intrigued to get to know more about her. Which is exactly how I feel about Ai. But all we can do is wait and see if hoyo can play this hand that they given themselves well. (If it's the same writers as Belabogs them I believe were in good hands)

[@fezzcode6588]

I remember whem Himeko died in Honkai Impact, she was my fav character and I cried her death BUT because her death had a lot of meaning behind (she sacrifices herself to save us in an epic battle), despite making me feel sad it wasn't hard to go on with the game because her death was full of meaning, and so on with many other characters on the series. Was Tingyun's death meaningful? (I don't play HSR)

[@eastonair]

I don’t believe Tingyun’s death was very meaningful really. Especially because we didn’t meet the real character - it felt more cheap, like shock value. With Himeko we had quite a long time to get to know her, see how she related with the main characters, etc. Tingyun we had the first half of the Luofu in 1.0, then maybe 30 minutes with her in 1.2 before she revealed herself to be Phantylia. The 1.3 main story quest with her funeral tries to characterize her more as you go to see her friends and get them to provide offerings for her, but it really doesn’t work as well. I’m not sure if you played Genshin’s Inazuma arc or not but Tingyun’s death was a lot more like Teppei’s (who was a literal NPC).

[@Sneg404]

No. It was out of the blue and for me it felt like it was made to be a wow effect and it was, everyone was shocked to see it. But it felt meaningless and the continuation of her story has been even worse so far, with the funeral for the character whose death was not certain. Like why? why would u do that?

[@mileniumshadowvn6652]

@@Sneg404Many like me especulate they are bringing her back to meet us for the fisrt time, like the whole interaction with Yukong is to feel the weight of her past and how important is for her and Tingyun that she is going to fly again only to search for her

[@Nethan2000]

You could say Tingyun's death had a negative value because it means that we never really got to know the main villain of the Luofu arc -- Phantylia, which in the end made her a very weak villain. In contrast, by sacrificing herself, Himeko defeated an undefeatable villain we spend the whole previous chapter losing against and propped Otto as a villain for predicting and orchestrating it all.

[@Sneg404]

@@mileniumshadowvn6652 if that's true, that seems like an unnecessary play on emotions of the hsr players. Everyone who got to know and love Tingyun just got screwed over. I think that this death was put in the game for added virus factor and publicity for the game. It made people talk, screenshot, share, make videos about it and that's what they wanted. I don't support such moves to promote the game and i genuinely feel sorry for Tingyun and her fans

[@disappointindude]

Well, I've seen on reddit how people talk about "Real Tingyun". Someone talks that she's dead, some still proving that she's on her vacation on some planet, or being held in some secret places of the universe. But i also saw a some thoughts that the real fox is nothing but a Nanook servant. I mean, the void rangers-like mindless machine that we seen in game. It's crazy, but also have some logic. All that mystery about her death and lost of 15 jades from phone, the whole lore behind antimatter Legion (its literally mindless corpses with machine parts and infinite loyalty to destruction path and aeon of it, its from ingame lore book, i guess) just gives a massive hints on her real fate. What if the real fox that is of course, a future 5* money printer is brand new character? The different design, lore, abilities and characteristics? And all that stuff in 1.2-1.3 was a Chekhov gun that must prepare us to her new appearance? It also fits in conception of "death" in most meanings of this word. The previous Tingyun is gone, she's really dead, the new one is brainwashed Phantilya grunt, she's dead in lore and everything, FACE WITH IT. We will get another one Blade treatment, but it also good way to make her character more interesting to the players and her influence in plot bigger. It's may be a spit in face for all her 4* fans, but hoyo can be unpredictable and they more brave in questions of characters in honkai verse, so its a good way to use her in future for plot and money. The only thing that they need to do is explain it correctly. Btw, the video is great and i really enjoyed it, thanks. Hoping that you will continue your content making in your channel (i read your post on reddit about that earlier, but still). Greets from Kazakhstan, and sorry for my poor choice of words in English.

[@eastonair]

Your English writing is good! Easy for me to understand what you’re saying. Thanks for watching and for your words of encouragement :)

[@dryptosaurus]

I started playing Star Rail because of a friend and I also found Tingyun's design and kit very interesting, so she became one of my primary characters (next to Natasha). I similarly pulled on the limited banner, and luckily got her without getting the general. As I said it in a different comment, I only played the story now (because I took a couple months break thanks to getting stuck by the deer), so I did 1.2 and 1.3 story quests back to back. And I was also basically grieving for like two day, being in a near crying state the entire way (this was only like 1-2 weeks ago, so I'm still pretty emotional about it). I am definitely in the "coping she is alive, somewhere" camp. I also think that her death and reveal was not written well. I heard rumours about Tingyun's betrayal and death while I wasn't playing, and I eas imagining a completely different storyline especially when I continued to play. I think it's a better, more interesting way to do her death, and this is what I thought the story was heading towards: Tingyun is interested in the Arbor, because she wants to live forever (originally thought that Foxians lived shorter lives than Xianzhou natives, and that would be the motivation), so she would, at some point betray us and side with Sanctus Medicus. But when we next meet her, she is getting overtaken by Mara (somewhat like Blade and the soilders do) and we have to kill her to save her from that state (a thing she also wants to avoid, because she would realise that SM isn't good. This makes Tingyun's death more impactful as we would need to kill her, would make Mara-stuck be an even more dangerous threath, and we could actually mourn her/do a funeral for her. (This might not be 100% aligned with the game's lore, but they made up the lore not long ago, so they could have chosen differently)

[@eastonair]

I agree there are a LOT of ways they could have done it better. Imagine if the Aurum Alley event was earlier and it was something we did with Tingyun! Then at least we would have had a better point of reference and known that we met the real character etc. She definitely suffers from the Luofu’s messy writing too.

[@3amapplecam]

Your genuine feelings really came through in the writing and your delivery!

[@dooggo-1402]

I haven't played Honkai: Star Rail, but man I found Tingyu not too while ago. And it feels so bad just to find her, a Character with such a great character design. Only to then realize, she's dead, and there wasn't much relevancy with her in the first place.

[@eastonair]

When playing the game it did feel like a bait-and-switch of sorts

[@elixxon]

Sushang is a VERY recent arrival on te Loufu just having been moved there from another ship. Her voiceline about Tingyun talks about having met her many times in the several shops she owns. Tingyun's current job is preparing to be helm master and foreign trade outside of the Loufu. It seems to basically spoil that she's gonna be back and going to have a whole career change. Also Tingyun's voiceline about Luocha talks about her never having met him, while Luocha's says that he is acquainted with her and now we know he was involved with Phanthylia's plot all along. The story also can't go any more clear about how we are only holding a funeral because there is nothing for a missing person investigation to go off of, and Yukong even states that she's starting an investigation. My prediction considering the involvement of Destiny's Slave in the way the whole thing went down is Tingyun just got mugged, hacked and stranded abroad, by certain wanted people with outrageously high bounties and Phanthylia just stole an influential missing person's identity.

[@kylehenline3245]

It's certainly open to interpretation but I don't think Luocha had anything to do with Phanthylia's plot. Pretty sure he was there to learn about the resurrection technique Dan Feng and blade attempted cause he is trying to bring back Kallen (or whoever is in the coffin.)

[@AnArtistInAVoid]

It’s interesting to see this from a more meta perspective. Why? Cuz Honkai Impact 3rd handled character death pretty well. The story of Honkai impact starts off super cheerful and light hearted, but around chapter 9(I think) stuff goes wild with how serious of a U turn the atmosphere takes. And the story doesn’t just go back to a “Haha funny comedy slice of life” I feel like the difference between the death of Himeko in Impact and the death of Tingyun in star rail is a very simple one: Himeko was meant to die. Himeko in Impact is a teacher and a guiding figure for the main trio, and her death really kickstarts their arcs in the story. Himeko mattered a whole lot to the main cast, and her impact(pun intended) on the trio is evident even at the end of The Moon and Finality story. Tingyun is just a glorified tour guide to the astral express, until it turned out that it was Phantylia the entire time just chillin in the background. Tingyun had nothing to do with the arcs of the main cast, and doesn’t end up influencing the story long term. The death of Tingyun just feels forced and unnecessary, and in my opinion, largely not thought through. Which makes me think that maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Hoyoverse just needed some character to stick around the main cast and eventually reveal themselves to actually be Phantylia. It wouldn’t have mattered who it was. It only mattered that it would be a twist that introduced one of the major antagonists under Nanook.

[@flarpo11]

I think the whole "space comedy suddenly becoming a space tragedy for a minute" thing is kind of the point. Everyone is cracking jokes and goofing around because they're outsiders with no real stake in, or understanding of, the struggles of the locals. Contrast the way Bronya acts compared to the main trio in Belobog. While everyone else is in a comedy, she's in a war drama. I don't think the game was really meant to be exclusively comedic so much as the player character (and compatriots) were meant to be goofy characters. The world itself is always presented mostly seriously except to facilitate the odd gag with the MC and friends. I think of it like if the Three Stooges stumbled their way into the Vietnam war. They'd still be funny, but the backdrop would be quite dire. Ultimately, it can always be boiled down to "Dude, it's Honkai, that's just how they do." It's a serious story with funny characters that occasionally need to get slapped across the face with the reality of the situation.

[@jepeman]

The constant 4th wall breaking isn't doing any favors for the game either.

[@godl_wolf]

My guy you talk about space comedy belobog and all but in belobog we got cocolia who die in front of us with march smiling just after that because this is not their problem it's the same for tingyun the astral express don't care about that because we didnt know her so why do you want them to be dramatic about her ? It's sad for the luofo resident who know her like it was sad for bronya when her lost cocolia

[@eastonair]

Yeah the scene of March 7th being all “that was awesome!” after we killed Cocolia felt really awkward for kind of the same reason. The game wasn’t willing to give up its goofy tone for what otherwise should have been a more serious moment. But then they chose to go all-in on the seriousness for Tingyun, I would have preferred they avoided this by not killing her off! Not that the express crew pays her respects (which they wound up doing in a much nicer way than they did for Cocolia).

[@godl_wolf]

@@eastonair I thinks it's for the viewer to see how she was before the incident For cocolia we got the chance to see that by the way people talk to her and all during all the story so we knew that it's because of the stellaron that she become like she was at the end But for tingyun we literally never knew her the tingyun that yukong educated that everybody love were unknown to us so for us to know how she was and take a grief at the impact her death will have on the luofo citizen they need to made the funeral Now they is the fact that she's playable and by this mean we can see content of her in the future we could even see what happen to her before phantylia take her place or they could take the cruel road and made a himeko were they mentioned her almost everywhere for make her fan cry 😭

[@welachutmelexcel]

As someone who takes game stories really seriously and completely in depth, I was totally prepared for all sorts of death, it felt like a random anime plot twist that make things exciting. Of course for people who play for the characters, gameplay and just fun, like 80% of people, it’s painful to see this kind of death and situation, especially for the people who like her. This death came too early at least.

[@yea-pn9fr]

Thank you making this video. I agree with a lot of points being made about this whole tingyun situation. Ngl, i straight up had a breakdown and cried from the 1.2 and 1.3 event because i just wanted to see the real tingyun be safe and sound and shes one of the few characters that got me interested in star rail, so seeing how they're doing this to her hurts me so much. I really wanna see the real tingyun be alive and well soon in the story cuz i dont wanna play a game where they do something like that to any character i find interest in 😭

[@dryptosaurus]

Gonna be honest, I only played the story now (because I took a couple months break), so I did 1.2 and 1.3 story quests back to back. And I was also basically grieving for like two day, being in a near crying state the entire way.

[@yea-pn9fr]

@dryptosaurus Oh my god im so sorry u have to go through that 😭 I really hope the real tingyun is alive and well soon so that we don't have to feel this way anymore

[@idminister]

Hoyo: "Never Gonna Let You Go" -Himeko

[@yea-pn9fr]

My bad for the sudden comment on a 6-7 month old video but WE'RE GETTING A TINGYUN FOLLOW UP THIS YEAR!!!!!!!! I DONT WANT MY BABY TO BE HURT!!!! I MISS HER!!!!! .·°՞(≧□≦)՞°·.

[@sabyasachidas7058]

Im still hopeful they will bring her back. Personally, I loved the twist with the fake tingyun death. Plus they didnt actually confirm that she really IS dead.. so they probably might reintroduce her back in some future plot.. maybe even as a 5* version of her. Cant wait to meet the real tingyun. I do hope though that its the same voice actor 😊

[@pitioti]

I have my hope, but, Veterants of Mihoyo games warned us that they pulled something like that with Himiko (in Honkai Impact 3rd) were the caracter died but it's only 2 years latter that they confirmed (in the scenario) she was really dead.

[@ElPolloLoco7689]

@@pitioti That's how you can tell that a company genuinely doesn't care about its fanbase.

[@xendordawnburst9969]

It seems that the Tingyun fans are all going through a similar experience to HI3's Himeko fans! Honestly, I'm just surprised we've gone so long in Genshin without a PC death!

[@iosis9324]

Not so surprising, because even in HI3 with a darker story in sight, and not mostly just in lore as in genshin, it took three years for the first and only dеаth of the PC. What is more surprising is how quickly and not a bit emotionally they ki||еd the PC in star rail, her dеаth is not even clear whether it is real or not. I'm betting my kidney and my whole life that she not even dеаd and will appear later, that's how empty and undefined her death was.

[@miranolastname2366]

Even so Himeko's death is meaningful. It's sad but she become the motivation and bring growth to the protagonist. Tingyun tho... she's more like a shock factor for the sake of shocking, dramatic plot twist. Himeko's death is sad but it makes the story beautiful, while Tingyun's is... I dont know... for the lack of better words... confusion?

[@ElPolloLoco7689]

Himeko was in the game for more than like a few months. Himeko's death was impactful, and she had a great send-off. Tingyun was thrown to the side, then given an half-assed funeral. What this tells me as a non-Honkai fan is that this game doesn't respect its characters in the slightest, and will go out of their way to disrespect the fanbase as well. I'm glad I dropped it.

[@Adan.2005]

The real title should be: i like tingyun and I didn't want her to die.

[@ahlemlora1452]

Ok here are the things : - No, tingyuan is not dead, I am among the people who like to joke about it, but in all seriousness she's not, they even made a point of making Fuxuan note how it was weird for phantylia to take away her body since if her goal was to instill terror in people, it would be way more effective to let the people look at her lifeless body. We'll probably see her later on as a "surprising" reveal (even tho most people won't be surprised) - "It goes against star rail's comedy aspect". NO it doesn't, what ? you expected the whole game to just be a joke ? Hoyo games, outside of genshin, have been notorious with dealing with sad stories and dark themes. Pretty much anyone who has played or seen HonkaiImpact 3rd and read it's lore already are accustomed to it. A game having both happy/fun moments AND sad/dark moments is what gives a compelling story. A story who only contains jokes or lightheartedness often lacks depth and is generaly directed for young audiences who can't handle heavier topics. HSR is directed to ages from teenagers and up, it's family friendly rating is linked to the absence of gore/se*ual content, but if you went any deeper in reading the lore, you'd realise it is directed to slightly more mature audiences All in all, to me you'r a person who obviously liked the character and got heart broken by her death, without taking the time to analyse the hints that were given about her not actually being dead. Believe me, when hoyo ACTUALLY kill off a character, they usually make a big deal of their death scene. Also, if they decide to kill off a character later, people should just accept it instead of "oh but it's a gacha game", because to me the moment you establish that no chracter will EVER die, you've lost the ability to make me take any dangerous scenario seriously (a bit like genshin, who has such a vanilla approach to things that I assure you that no playable character will ever die in the next 10 or so years, and that's just bland in my book) Game creators should not feel the need to hold back in their story writing just to take care of player's feelings about the death of a character they like. Also, one last thing, you said that the reason you'r upset about her death is because you liked the character, right ? Why did you like her ? If it's her personality, we know that wasn't the real her, so that would meen you like Phantylia's personality. If it's her gameplay and her appearance, you still have access to her as a playable character, so neither of the two have become unavailable to you. So my question is, why feel so upset over a character we never even knew ?I It'd be the equivalent in the story of the trailblazer telling people "I miss Tingyun", any other character around them would probably answer "how can you miss her if you never even knew her ?" All in all, best way to deal with this is just to focus on the gameplay part of the game, enjoy the new stories that come out, and maybe one day, once's you've completely forgotten about her, she might make a surprise appearance, but the best is just not to waste one's time thinking about when will that moment arrive and just enjoy the other characters and stories we encounter along the way.

[@shyamakpal]

im just sad we don't get texts or a companion quest, even if tingyun we had was a ravager all along it feels pretty unfair

[@ahlemlora1452]

@@shyamakpal At least there is a chance for Tingyun to eventually get those. Imagine how the people who like Blade felt when all his messages are some Bs joke among the other Stellaron Hunters. No joke, I did not find that funny, it just got me upset. We never even get to interact with him in the story and I doubt we'll ever get a standard character quest scenario with him because they wanna keep up his 'aloof' persona. Now this is what I call unfair

[@shyamakpal]

@@ahlemlora1452 i haven't done kafka's companion quest yet but I saw them on youtube as soon as they came out and yah... its REALLY disappointing. he doesn't even text you, both of them are just silverwolf and sam. Absalute let down. at least luka's were okay still wished we got to see him in the main story tho. at least luofu still has some more story so I really hope blade gets screen time but knowing hoyo, jl and huohuo are going to be the main focus for sales

[@pistonfry]

For me her "death" is sudden yes I agree, it's a shock factor that she's an impostor. But then it also brings up Mystery to the story, "Where is Tingyung". Then her funeral happened which for me gives us the complicated dilema of, is She real enough to have memories with us, or is she's an evil impostor. So I think it can be expanded just like Himeko's death, it's sudden but you can make it more meaningful, add mistery, etc. Also I don't think comparing it to Genshin is gud, it's too peaceful in theme sense unlike Honkai series.

[@XiaosChannel]

I'm not sure if this came across in the english translation, but Tingyun is probably always intended to be a bit sus, since foxes in chinese lore kind of occupied the same position as succubi as the sexy charming but ultimately deadly mythical creature, so she being all sweet when we meet her and turned out to be evil was kind of expected. If you love the current TY, you can think of her as never have died, as the character you really love is phantylia, which i think we are bound to meet again one day, kind of like danheng vs danheng IL but evil, we might get phantylia TY then she as someone else, or even herself one day. I know that's just copium but maybe that'll make you less desperate?

[@_-coffeeaddict-_]

I can’t lie- even as a genshin player, I actually thought her death was quite charming- it was definitely depressing and I hated that she likely wouldn’t return- but her death did make the entire story feel more meaningful- especially during the funeral scene, which I particularly felt delighted to participate in- it kinda encouraged me to play even more- I will also continue to hope for Tingyun’s return sometime down the road specifically because I remember a particular detail that leaves me with a bit of hope- I don’t care if I’m wrong ✨

[@silverhawkscape2677]

I was just mad. Most Blatant non "death" I've seen. If the Main characters aren't sure if she's even dead but they no idea where to search. Let's just have a Funeral and Put it out of our minds. It obvious they have no idea what to do with Tingyun now. They are just puttinf her on ice until they figure out if they should just make a story quest confirming her death or just sell us a 5 start Destruction version.

[@hsr612]

@@silverhawkscape2677 They having done something you don't like doesn't mean they have no idea what to do with her. Most likely, they already know if she's dead or not; it's just that this will probably be revealed in the future, perhaps in some adventure or something, to unveil Tingyun's fate

[@silverhawkscape2677]

@@hsr612 They don't. When writers put a characters fate like this it means they don't know what to do and are putting them on ice.

[@guillermocervisalmeron2209]

​@@silverhawkscape2677genshin impact with 30 characters that doesn't do anything in the story or have something that will never do like Mona fate power, Yanfei as a law, etc.

[@reezwave]

Great video, very in depth I like it. I wanna discuss a little bit more. I think the funeral would not feel like a filler if she's still alive. In fact, it will be deeper and touching if we find the real tingyun and then brought her back to xianzhou because we already experienced the funeral. If they just forget about it and moved on (without any funeral) and then bring her back, it will be awkward as hell, cus why the xianzhou people never got sad that tingyun is gone? I think the whole point why the funeral exist in the first place is for hoyoverse to have a safe decision, whether to actually kill her or not. If they did bring her back, it will be touching esp to see yukong cried for example. If they didn't, then it doesn't matter cus we already did her funeral. About playable characters that can be died/get killed (this is just my personal opinion btw), I still think it's a good choice. We supposed to care about the characters. If they never or cannot die then what's the point to even care about them? I love genshin, but the fact that all this time we only see npcs and villains death, and even the important npc death one aka teppei got killed offscreen is just disrespectful for that character. It shows how afraid the genshin team is about this matter. I think a joyful and happy entertainment doesn't mean it cannot have a sad or serious moment in it. I think a good entertainment (whether it's a show, a videogame, or movie) will have more impact if it has all emotions to hit the consumers. They can laugh, cry, mad, every emotion will make that entertainment more memorable instead of just playful all the time. Like, even a dark show like aot have funny moments in it, doesn't mean it's wrong, right? Same thing here, because we always have joyful moments, giving us a single sad and dark moment to grieve is not wrong at all, as long as they do it right. Now, does tingyun's death feel right? Imo, not quite, which is why I think she's still alive. My copium is that the reason phantylia can disguise as tingyun is because of luocha. Luocha knew who tingyun is, and he met/seen her before (iirc). So maybe, he knows she's not in xianzhou at that moment, which is why it's the perfect time to make phantylia (idk how) disguise as her, while distracting the real tingyun from going home just yet.

[@DanielGonzalez-sd3fy]

I 100% felt this I got a team based around seele and tingyun was on it. I liked her character design and her personality being kinda sassy but after i saw her die and later realized i dont know the real ones personality i did not want her on my team anymore. My happiness from the character died, and I stopped using her.

[@angelpeluffo3549]

She isnt actually dead, after all both fu xuan and yukong talk about the possibility about her not being dead. Also, do remember that phantylias whole thing is deceiving people, like deceiving everyone into thinking that tingyun is dead while also using the possibility of them believing that and not trying to search for her as a catalyst to break the living tingyun into being phantylias puppet and using her against the player at some point. So yeah, she may or may not be alive. each player may choose what to believe until the devs say anything, still this was an interesting video that made me doubt if she might really be dead. Still i choose to believe that we will find her alive somewhere at some point.

[@eastonair]

“She may or may not be alive, each player may choose what to believe until the devs say anything.” I think this may be how they leave her fate permanently, exactly for this reason. For them it may be better to let players choose.

[@gumikin8706]

​@@eastonairEh, no, Considering it is Honkai Star Rail, and knowing Honkai Devs, she is 100% will be addressed later, either for actual confirmation of death, or with her being found ot even saves. But honestly, to me it all screams the opposite, not that her chances are low, but that her chances are sky-high, even in the "funeral" event itself You choose if you want to tell people that Tingyun died or just on a new adventure, and trustfully speaking You don't know if she is dead so it is only natural to tell she is just doing new stuff for her and her job, even more so considering the lifetime of Luofu people for them her being absent for a few years is something totally normal, it is not Whole few years for them, it is Just few years for them Tingyun fate is tied to Antimatter Legion, and that is enemy we will encounter numerous times in future, so her chances to appear in any of them is quite high, imho she is farest from death exactly because this "death" was not impactful and complete, Hoyo know and have big experience of how to make death impactful, if they didn't make it so, not even showed body, it just means that it is death bait

[@osunnys6681]

​@@gumikin8706 So, in 2 years she'll be confirmed? Like you're saying it's Honkai devs, the only death similar to this in Hi3 was Himeko's (Which has way more meaning from the beginning, and this was 100% rushed as fuck) which was a death that was left unresolved for TWO YEARS and SIXTEEN CHAPTERS. Hoyoverse isn't gonna confirm it anytime soon, and I mean this unironically, the only reason they left it up in the air, is because they themselves don't know what to do with the death atp.

[@gumikin8706]

@@osunnys6681 It can be absolutely any amount of time, and you say "Similar Death" when they are as similar as egg of two different bird species. Himeko had A Giant Red Flag of Death over her head, disease that will kill her soon, chapter full of her life recollection, and final epic battle where she get visibly heavy damage and looks on the death doorstep, while telling her final lesson to Kiana and lifelessly falling into oblivion. You know she died, and only miracle could prove otherwise. Tingyun have nothing of it, and all we know for sure, is that Tingyun-like Puppet of Phantilia got her neck snapped and didn't even leave a body, we have zero proofs it even was Ting, because we can't confirm shit, Yukong explicitly states that she will track down Ting's fly record to get when it happened, Welt advices that she can still be alive, and despite "funeral" we leave that matter up in the air far from being closed, screaming that we will return to that later Saying that devs don't know what to do with it, is really just some act of arrogance, because you have no proofs of that, and I know Hoyo, they have plans for it already, maybe without details, maybe it will be changed later, but they have rough plan for it

[@willrmmerhunter]

​@@gumikin8706Do note there were significant differences between beta and 1.0 in terms of the little story part that was available. There will absolutely be significant things later on that were not planned from the beginning.

[@DarkChibiWeebie]

Personally i came in and expected there to be character deaths at some point knowing how honkai 3rd was about that a bunch and bringing back the characters too but it just doesn't feel alot like the event fits at all. Like you said in the video with it going from joking to serious then back to joking it just ruined the game's attention imo. I do hope in the future there is some kind of twist of seeing her coming back it did kill my interest with the game after seeing how it's went after the update.

[@eastonair]

Yeah and it didn’t help that the short funeral quest was all we got for the main story after 6 weeks. It would have been better as an epilogue within 1.2, then maybe they could have included a more lighthearted interlude in 1.3 that paired better with Aurum Alley. But ultimately we got what we got.

[@arufianz]

Wow never expect to see a full character analysis from a 12 subs channel at the making of this comment, thanks to the algorithm. The thumbnail and title is really great to make you want to click it and the way you explain the topic is really good and quite entertaning, anyway this video is really well made. I wonder did you have an experience of making a video content or something? btw, maybe the real tingyung is the friends we made a long the way :D

[@eastonair]

Thank you for watching, I’m glad you enjoyed the video! Re: Your question. My career is in multimedia. Making YT content in this style was new for me, but writing and editing videos in general is not.

[@hex3head]

i had the same feeling watching the scene. i wasn't surprised i was more like "huh? that came outa nowhere... why?"

[@infinitezion2029]

Can't say i agree with this take as it seems based more around anger that a character you liked hit the chopping block and not truly about the writing and story. The handling of Tingyuns death in the story wasnt bad in the slightest. The story has the team get to know her briefly before the reveal and most likely death, of course they'd be shocked but this isn't someone they'll never recover from losing as to them she was just another person they met for a short time along their vast journey. They grieved shortly before movin on and going back to their antics, they didnt have a reason to go Kiana and become full on depressed over the loss of a woman they barely knew. Yukongs mission and the funeral is a much better wrap up as it involves people who knew and actually cared for Tingyun. The real issue you and most others having a hard time with this seem to have is the lack of clarity revolving the current state of Tingyun, but thats the entire point you're not supposed to know as its not somethin that can be cleared up easily. Her entire death and the Yukong mission that follows is all about how fleeting and uncertain life truly is and how even after a loss the rest of the world continues to moves forward. The whole thing was handled very well and i think the main problem is people coming from Genshins story which doesn't like to kill actual playable characters werent prepared for an actual death like this which is more in like with Honkai impact and GGZ.

[@cookeyjarsgamingshenanigan5034]

I feel like Hoyoverse has some sort of Jinx with Chapter 3 of their games lately...First GI with Inazuma with messy writing, plot and wasted potential and HSR with Xiangzhou Luofu with overbloated plot and pacing, Tingyun's Supposed death and the Luofu as a whole overstaying its welcome....I can't be the one thinking this.

[@eastonair]

You’re definitely not the only one to think this way. The Inazuma civil war plot line was just not good. And don’t forget they made the whole Dan Shu plot line completely optional. The pacing of the activities we follow in that quest came at a weird moment but the story was good and built Dan Shu up to be someone who had an understandable grudge against the Aeon of the Hunt. But then she doesn’t really do anything other than call out Phantylia and have her intervene. The writing of these live-service gacha games tends to fluctuate over time. Some quests and plot lines are handled better than others. It’s hard to avoid with large, rotating teams of people working on a project for so long.

[@cookeyjarsgamingshenanigan5034]

@@eastonair I felt the whole Dan Fu/Dan Heng & Blade plot was SLOPPY. AND WHY THE HELL YANQING WAS THERE AND FIGHTING HIM INSTEAD OF BLADE????! Ugh. I really like HSR and its overarching themes of travels, meeting new people, forming bonds, helping out and being a space comedy adventure but Luofu I think I can safely say: SHOVE OFF. I agree that gacha plots tend to go fluctuate but talk about overstaying your welcome and chucking the space comedy aspect out the window from the chapter as a whole....I know that the Story can't be funny ALL the time, but man was everything just thrown together. And ironically, the devs are aware of this!

[@rabbits2345]

HSR is a space fantasy game. If they want to include tingyun ina story or event, they can easily make a back in time event like March's where we dive into her memories. Her dying doesnt mean she will be absent the rest of HSR

[@neanahidden]

March right after Bronya basically had to kill her mum… HSR can be as tone deaf sometimes. I’m still more used to Genshin “safety” where you can be pretty sure only NPCs are in danger. Sooo, I guess I’m in the “still believing the real Tingyun is out ther and will still someday appear. The funeral wasn’t final enough. Yukong saying she’s going after her, having finally a reason to take flight again. It would be a great storyline for both their characters. It has too much potential to just waste. But who knows. Of course there’s something sad even in the best chance that the one who died was only a copy, she’s just a stranger who can’t understand why we are moved to meet her. I’m not as invested as you clearly are. But for a brief moment i was there too. When Blade struck Dan Heng my first thought was NOT HIM TOO. I try to stay away from all leaks and spoilers so I didn’t know about IL. I was lucky, my favourite “died” and got a 5star version. It feels really unfair.

[@NatyaVT]

"Honkai Star Rail is a fun adventure." Natasha's and Bailu's companion quests: *exists.*

[@chillingeclipsed411]

I feel this, since I've found it hard to play with her in the overworld since that moment, (and this is coming from someone who was so excited to get her when I first began playing) since all I can think of is what happened to her. But, I do believe she's still alive - and Natasha's signature 4* lightcone is what pushes this belief. I also find that the entire thing with her so-called 'death' was way too flimsy and didn't stand up to Hoyo's standards. In Natasha's lightcone, it shows a character who looks very much like Tingyun. And apparently, she was severely wounded, and Natasha thanked her for making it through the surgery. So there's a chance she had gone to Belobog and encountered a severe battle - possibly when her body was mimicked/left for dead while Phant-cangofuckherself skedadled adorning Tingyun's visage. That's my speculation and theory at least.

[@eastonair]

Glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. And I hope your theory turns out to be right!

[@Tovy]

Your first video, I presume? Anyway, it was amazing, all the technical quality, the articulation, the ideas themselves and how you explained them. I never was really invested in Tingyun's sorry that much, but that video was amazing. Hope you'll keep making content!

[@logikx1325]

I haven't played the game in English, but I can say that the JP voice lines and text left me feeling like the one who died was a simulacrum of some sort.....not the real Tingyun. The real Tingyun might be in a spot of trouble, but is implied to be very likely, still kicking somewhere off screen (her fate is uncertain but the understanding is that the one who died was definitely not the original, leaving the door open for a rescue mission that apparently would seem like an ass pull for the EN version of the game?).

[@eastonair]

Thanks for sharing your experience with the JP text! I only speak English so as much as I would have loved to compare alternate lines, I wouldn’t have been able to tell. In EN, immediately following the reveal, Welt does say that it may not have been the real Tingyun who collapsed before us. But beyond that everything everyone says is that “she could be dead.” There is no certainty that it was a fake body we saw.

[@blondbraid7986]

I agree that the part about Tingyun's funeral was badly written; the fact that everyone simultaneously talks about how her death cannot be fully confirmed whilst literally holding a funeral for her plus the fact that the protagonist never met her yet still is the one handling most of her funeral for some reason, plus saying she was an impostor from the start feels like a waste from a storytelling standpoint. I'd much rather have the game start with us meeting the real her, and then at some point have her disappear only to soon re-appear, and make the player piece together the clues after the reveal. Plus the fact that they outright state in-game that nobody saw the real her die still leaves the door open for another surprise reveal later on. But at the same time, ever since Final Fantasy 7, having an established character die permanently to raise the stakes of the story has been a common storytelling trope, and Star Rail has been fairly consistent so far in keeping the more goofy stuff in the sidequests while the main quests are serious, just look at the Belabog storyline and how Bronya had to deal with her mother figure being a villain, so I disagree that Tingyuns death was "too serious" for the game.

[@poppythebloodedge]

Tingyun's Death Just Broken Me Just Breaks My Heart

[@FlameWish]

Thank you for this video. It really echoes how I feel with some Final Fantasy XIV's characters who weren't plot armored/ressurected by the writers.

[@royaldance26]

i think tingyun is totally , no - takesies - backsies , absolutely , 100 % No Chill dead . we're only THREE patches into the game with her death having just happened last patch , A Certain Character from hi3 dies in chapter nine --- not even making to the double digits --- and we didn't get to have a proper funeral for her (because of everything else insane that was happening & everyone going through their own depression - filled arcs, to be fair) until chapter 25 . i don't deny that xianzhou's tonal writing is a little ... slippery , to say the least , but i think it sets a good gist of the game with how early we get a permanent character death (and istg if mihoyo bring her back, i'll eat a whole cardboard box set to flame) . like hi3 , we're lured into a sense of security with how "totally inseparable this trio, this family is" with mei, bronya, kiana, fu hua, himeko, and theresa . And Then Chapter 9 Happens And Everyone Splinters Like It's That Scatter Scene From Ratatouille . 7 years later , we still have even MORE heart - shattering scenes of Things I Won't Spoil , but also , they made one of the more fun summer events for me personally to date last year & that was alongside the gut - wrenching tale of the 13 flamechasers slapping everyone across the face . just that in hi3 , we already had like 4 different gacha units of said character already out (not including all the outfits too) up until axing her . add salt to the wound that she is SO dethroned from the meta that she's sometimes not even in the same building anymore most of the time . i feel like this ties in well with hsr BECAUSE we're trailblazers ; we only see pieces of the tapestry , seeing bare bits of so many lives across so many worlds , witnessing either the tasking setup or the horrifying consequences but never getting the full luxury of both . the stellaron hunters promise the threat of a much darker and deeper story to come what with their work of forcing the narrative into an outcome where "humanity" (?) succeeds at whatever they're trying if kafka is to be as believed as she says . we can mourn the people we come across losing but ultimately must keep our heads held high toward the next trailblaze . i do agree that it sucks we never got to meet the real tingyun but we DID get to know her thanks to the people who partook in her funeral , showing us who she really was & remembering her and sharing those memories with us . honestly i feel like this the hsr team dipping their feet into character deaths since they've done it On Repeat in hi3 but don't have that luxury setup in a world like genshin where the playable cast is much MUCH bigger & every character means so much to a bunch of people so all of them feel too Protected to really threaten them (except xiao because they keep making xiao flirt with the line i swear) , whereas star rail meeting in the middle (from what it looks like for now) with a giant playable cast but wanting the players to know that death is just as much as a companion to the narrative as the ones people freely (or not so freely) roll for . t;ldr i really like the video and i'm genuinely sorry for you for losing your whole fav because i know i would throw up , shit bricks , and scream until my lungs were dry if they ever fucking act on the INSURMOUNTABLE amount of death flags jing yuan keeps collecting like cANDY . however i'm also just used to death so closely haunting the narrative in honkai games because , well , : )))))))))

[@eastonair]

I’m glad you liked the video! I hope your Jing Yuan stays safe.

[@planetary-rendez-vous]

Even if the other commenter's disagree, from a gameplay perspective, it is completely legit that it breaks the game just for the sake of story. And tbf it kinda came out of nowhere if you're not paying a lot of attention. They could easily have left Tingyun unconscious and made her possessed instead of replaced. Nothing would literally change.

[@jasmine9581]

00:00 I'm still new so this title (Up Next after Guinafen kit) was how I found out 😅

[@royistheboi2638]

Yo, for a first video on the channel, this is soooo good. I didn't even notice that it's was your first video

[@jnliewmichael4235]

While it's been months since that controversial Tingyun scene (I still think it's a cheap death, cause her death was written worse than an NPC's) Boy, having played the most recent story, if they somehow bring back that character in like 2 patches, oh boy. Love the character, still. It is interesting. The first time I experienced Himeko, Signora, in this game Cocolia, there is this finality to their deaths. But since Cocolia, that has not happened since. Oh well, at least the story before that scene was great.

[@brosephstinson1297]

Star rail players malding over some depresso moment. Get on our level! Signed, One of the many captains of the hyperion.

[@bluejay2509]

I'm not gonna lie, thats why this game is a Honkai game, not a Genshin game. Honkai is notoriously known for its silly moments, but also its utterly tragic ones. I do think they should have done her memorial quest better, but I don't think she should of just not died. Genshin, while having many dark moments, is generally the more light hearted side of hoyo's games.

[@Pheonee]

Just a belated comment from a Tingyun gal to say that I totally resonate with the way you feel. I don't agree with every part of the video - HSR has always had a darker undertone, with stakes measured in human lives, and of course in the past few months we've seen that more and more - but the feeling of betrayal and burnout is relatable. I also started the game for Tingyun after falling in love in the closed beta, made her my main, and then uninstalled the game for most of 1.3 because apart from losing a character I liked, I also felt that her death was completely meaningless - it was just for the shock value; the personality we'd gotten to know didn't actually die, while the person we thought we liked was someone we'd never actually met. Out of loyalty to my other favourite character Jing Yuan I did eventually feel okay to return to the game but that was a frustrating bit of time.

[@eastonair]

Thanks for commenting, I’m glad my video resonated with you. I wound up sticking around too, because I had been really looking forward to Jingliu’s release. I at least wanted to get her. Obviously we’ve got a few more MIA characters after Penacony 2.2. The cast is growing so big so quickly, it will be almost impossible to balance screen time to all characters. I think we could see more of this.

[@rodrigogarces2010]

Good video

[@StompGojiStomp]

Tingyun isn’t dead. Otherwise the body wouldn’t have been taken. I believe it was an illusion that dissipated when nobody was looking. Otherwise she would have been just left on the stone floor. Remember the main crew are always left in the dark with a whole bunch of people playing 4d chess. That body missing is a huge clue.

[@toxicmatt5188]

you're so based for making this video,please make more

[@theshig9618]

I'd argue the premise that Honkai Star Rail is a comedy. While it certainly has comedic moments, that game literally starts with a space station being invaded, and one of the first side quests you can do can result in one of the researchers becoming a nihilist who doesn't see the point in existence since we're all going to die eventually.

[@utkarshtulaskar]

I remember there was real scare in Genshin when one of trailers hinted towards Kazuha’s death and I was ready to leave game if it was case but in this case it doesn’t feel same. I feel what you said works for 5 stars you spend so much on just for them to be off in story mode

[@prof.dexample6238]

I never really got over Chizuru's death in Genshin and dropped it for months after that, I feel like a lot of the trust I had for the game is gone now. So I can't imagine how honkai players feel

[@miharu807]

There always been a disconnect between the characters in the story line and in our team. They should just explain it by giving the trailblazer a power of Fuli that make they can recreate memories copy of people they knew in battle. That would explain still having tingyun after her death.

[@Adan.2005]

The fact that people think this is a comedy game is insane, bro this game only has a few months, you can't decide that yet when the history has just begun.

[@kingpedero7802]

The fact that you can play as a death character always feels weird to me. In my opinions those kind of game shouldn’t kill their playable character because these characters are what that makes the game what it is.

[@player-ly3gs]

Well, Welcome to Penacony, My friend.

[@riam850]

Himeko Mains who seen their main die at least 5 different times: You get used to it :)

[@xrosslegends1279]

Imagine Tingyun one day appears with an eye patch as Punished Tingyun, having survived whatever Phantylia did to avoid she appearing in the Loufu at the same time as her, and after a line of quests she ends up being the one to finish off Phantylia, maybe becoming a new 5 star in the process after absorving her powers or something. XD This idea reminds of a character from Granblue Fantasy that starts off her introductory event as a normal NPC like characters, and by the end of it becomes a powerful mercenary with a flying Shark that can fuse with her and stuff. XD

[@phatlas03]

I need to watch the video but it reminds me of how Genshin is going right now. Fontaine seems to be taking on death a lot more often in its stories. We've had NPCs passing away in Inazuma, but not as brutally as the ones in Fontaine. You'll have to correct me if I'm wrong cause it's been a while since I played Genshin up to Sumeru

[@VangolaGear]

I think it was important. See, while the characters do crack jokes a lot, the overall story is rather serious. The characters of the story are goofy, but the story is not. There is a disconnect there. “World is slowly freezing over the last 700 years? Time to break some ice with the locals! Lol.” “Group of immortal terrorists forcing their beliefs on others? They have all the time in the world to listen to my jokes.” These stories are hella dark when you look into them past the jokes the crew of the Star Rail make. It’s all about death, suffering, and destruction. Up until that point the members of the Astral Express were able to save everyone without fail. Suddenly there is a death of someone the group is close with, right in front of their eyes. It creates a sense of betrayal and shock that they hadn’t felt up until that point. It makes the stakes more real and personal for them.

[@Omnislash7]

The fact that Phantalya escaped and we didn’t finish her off there’s still the possibility of getting more clarity of this down the line when we meet her again. As for them giving us moments with a character that’s dead beyond their death, I suppose it all comes down to just how much of Honkai Impact’s DNA is in this game as they have shown there to still make use of dead characters in some way

[@roweginmendoza9703]

I'll say one thing there's a few ways that if Tingyun is revealed dead then come back to life(or ant dead characters) first Yaoshi she probably has something to revive someone BUT the one WHO both have the means and motivation to kill and later revive a character is Aha so either she's not really dead or those 2 Aeons will do something about it

[@user-sx9nn5fe5m]

well we've got another playable character "death" with Avenurine now. maybe they were prepairing us for darker heavier and MUCH more dead infusing penakony plot? i mean kokona (not sure how her name is written in english) quite literally killed herself.

[@ignika]

Her death was pretty cool. Loved that

[@DramaticCrossroad]

I hope for your sake Tingyun gets the "Dan Heng" treatment and returns as a 5-star. :)

[@Fyreshield]

Based on the title I was originally planning to just watch it and not interact by liking or commenting because I was doubtful of whatever thesis you had, but then I got to watching and found it to actually be an excellent discussion of the implications of killing off Tingyun, especially as a hoyoverse character. I definitely agree that saying the Tingyun we knew was Phantilya all along causes serious issues with the character going forward

[@gliocasneko]

I feel like if she's coming back, it will be rescuing from sort of Phantylia's wardrobe of living bodies she keeps somewhere to copy their form and memories. So Tingyun prolly won't be back till they are ready to kill off Phantylia.

[@gliocasneko]

That or at some point we get a 5 star version of Tingyun named Phantylia. Like how we got Imbibitor Lunae.

[@silk7818]

Bro would die, playing Honkai 3rd... Now, seriously, it's overreaction. In HI3rd they make dead characters playable, they regularly scare players with playable characters being at the brink of death, they make it seem that a certain character has died and sometimes they kill those beloved characters on-screen in the saddest ways. The game's story is very damn sad. But mihoyo makes the goofy events anyways, story has a lot of goofy moments and characters (hello, Senti and Elysia) and one of the main points of the story is to not be sad about the stuff in the past, but instead be happy about what we have now, so that's why it's a mix of fun and sad stuff. Hsr will probably be close to that. Also, mihoyo will probably find a way to give Tingyun some screen time, they know how to do it. Though, if we'll see actual Tingyun in the story it will be in a pretty long time from now probably and it won't be just a simple "oh, cool, we found Tingyun, let's go back on xianzhou now".

[@The-seele-simp]

Bro talking about tingyun is me yelling to hoeyoverse to bring himeko back Edit:I just remembered himeko is alive in starrail. But it doesn’t feel the same!

[@eastonair]

Given that multiverse theory is just a basic truth in Hoyo’s games there are an infinite number of both alive and dead Tingyuns and Himekos out there!

[@The-seele-simp]

@@eastonair maybe I can stop crying about himeko after all

[@Momentofbruh]

When I saw it was a honkai game I knew, they would absolutely do something to cause us pain. Himeko has like a 40% chance of dying I’m im honest.

[@JosearoShikari]

something I would like to add is that character death is not good when it's just shoehorned in for the sake of shock value. Tingyun's death, in a vacuum, is an incredible scene; the animation, voice acting and special effects make for a very memorable and well executed scene. But when you put it into the context of the Luofu story, it really is a scene that comes out of nowhere and feels very forced, especially when it really feels like the writers are expecting us to care about a character that, in-universe, we've never even met. I find it really hard to care about Tingyun's death when they keep dragging it out like that, I find it very hard to relate to Yukong's grief when we never got to interact with the real Tingyun and learn more about their relationship, and I find especially egregious how in the Luofu story it really seems like Yukong and March are pretty much the only characters who give two shits about Tingyun's fate. All in all, I really hope that they just don't leave this thread hanging and that they give her a proper arc at some point. Great video, by the way.

[@eastonair]

Yea unfortunately the Xianzhou’s writing is messy and Tingyun suffers from it as well. They don’t do enough with her before or especially after to “earn” the shock which is why I think many are calling it a shock-value scene. Thank you for watching!

[@ManA-Level]

This same goes to The idea of killing of Xiao in Chasm quest. But what does it means for the future Events? Right....

[@digital-underworld]

My question in response to this is, is the playable Tingyun in our party Phantylia or Tingyun. The answer will determine whether your favorite charcter died or just revealed their true colors.

[@zenox7435]

there is a light cone in the game that shows that Tingyun is maybe alive the light cone is Post-Op Conversation the patient looks like Tingyun

[@Sekironprime]

At least as an FGO player, I know I'll not need to deal with this servants are already dead the moment you summon them Liangyu died in SIN? no biggie, she's still there in your Chaldea, a human character like Kirei is dead? Pseudo-Servant time baby. (yes there's a big Musashi-sized and Solomon-sized elephant in the room, but they're exceptions, not the rule. And I fully expect they'll bring them back in some form or another.) Even knowing this, stories still make you feel the pain of servant deaths (hell one's you may miss still hit, Gareth in Camelot Zero for instance)

[@chocobro3198]

I feel it was very out of the blue too, but I really do not have an issue with a character death in an otherwise fairly comedy driven story in and of itself, though. In fact, I feel there should always be moments for drama, seriousness and sadness. Themes like these occur in sitcoms too. It's part of life, and I like the variety of things that happen. It'd be boring if it all was just lighthearted stuff. I just feel it is very vague what actually did happen to her. I hope this will be explained at some point in the story. The funeral was rather odd too if they aren't even fully sure she's actually dead.

[@kkitsu5335]

Now it makes sense why Tingyun is focused by every enemy. It was to prepare us for her death!

[@ShuraKarp]

Does anyone know what music is at 0:40? Thanks in advance

[@fabiomp199]

Okay an actual serious comment that probably will never get red considering this is a month old video already. I came into Myhoyo games with impact 3rd and that game caught me by surprise when they killed a seemingly very important character not just to us as players but to genuinely the majority of the cast we knew at that point. I don't know if you missed them or something but the reason people made the memes about Himeko , is that all of us were ready for something to happen and we were dreading it. So the fact that there is a deaf doesn't very much surprises the surprise was just who it was. The main thing I have to talk about also is that this behavior from March and the main character is on brand, if you remember back to the fight with Cocolia you already had severe dark themes. And the trailblazers all where rather apathetic to the death, they felt bad for the living but they didn't mourn the dead more than that. It's very much implied that all of them are used to death, they've seen it before a lot. Tingyung actually got a lot more emotion from the cast than we have seen from other characters. Also you got something wrong it was not Phantilia that got the stelaron into the system, it was not Oto Apocalipse. All I'm saying is. You can't consider anyone in the story as invulnerable, all of us are ready to accept someone will die.

[@eastonair]

I’m still reading comments. It has just become difficult to reply to all of them. There are so many. I have played HI3 and I wish I would have said as much in the video. I did play it after Genshin though, so GI was still my first experience with Hoyo. I disagree that we should have assumed HSR would kill of characters just cause Honkai is in the name. They anre different games. Additionally, character death in HI3 didn’t break my immersion like it did in HSR. I will elaborate. HI3 killed off Himeko in Chapter 9 right? Took longer into the game and her death was a pivotal moment for Kiana. It supported the game’s themes and plot far more than Tingyun’s death did. Phantylia could have taken over an NPC or literally any character and nothing would have changed. You could not say the same about Himeko’s death. Plus, Himeko was the only playable character to get killed in this way. Most of the Flame Chasers were long dead and gone to begin with (not that their sim deaths weren’t sad but it is different). HI3 might kill characters, but it’s not like it kills characters a lot or frequently. It killed them very sparingly and very carefully. Lastly HI3 doesn’t have an overworld or an MC in the same way that HSR and Genshin do. The “Captain” kinda counts but the Bridge is obviously not canon since any character could be there even if they are dead or it would make no sense. Ultimately, having a dead character in HI3 didn’t create the same sort of dissonance to me as it did in HSR because HI3 is just not an immersive game like HSR or Genshin. Pardo was never on the bridge of the Hyperion for real, so not much changed when her sim died. Tingyun was in my party; now she can’t be. Big change. Anyways, thank you for watching and leaving the comment.

[@fabiomp199]

@@eastonair I can understand where you are coming from with your opinions about the weight the death has. Tingyung was one of my favorites instantly (I'm weak for foxes) so I was pretty sad at her death. And at least from my interpretation so was the cast, so much so that we kept asking about her fate to anyone who could potentially have an answer. And to me the answer is that she's not dead. I have two reasons for it and a potentially interpretation of the funeral scene. So I am of the mind that she is alive based on the information given to us. The first one being from Welt I believe who described that the Tingyung we saw "die" was not a real body, Phantilia would not miss the chance to torture us and the others with her corpse. The second is that even the divination system can't confirm her death, a system that so far has been perfectly accurate. Another reason that's beyond the game is that it's a cash cow. Tingyung returning later on with an entirely new kit, possibly after we save her from Phantilia or god forbid her working with the anti mater legion for what ever reason. As for the funeral I think it's got a lot more to do with traditions. The characters don't know how long ago Tingyung was taken. The ceremony to me is more a farewell to the memories they had potentially during the Phantilia phase and not to her actual soul. Of course I've also entertained the idea of her being truly dead but the writers not being allowed to show the corpse or say so due to some sort of weird censorship but this is a low probability

[@taltos2467]

While I believe that yes there absolutely should be death in the game and perhaps even deaths of playable characters, the way they handled it with Tingyun really just ensured I wouldn't be happy with the result regardless of what they do with it from here on out. Like let's assume she's dead. Ok, well what situation can they really throw in to make the actual reveal that she's dead satisfying after both Welt has thrown the idea out there that she may be alive somewhere because she'd have left a corpse behind if not, and we had time after time during the funeral quest where people were still dedicated to looking for her even if they were pessimistic about it. The stuff about Tingyun held the most weight in the patches including and immediately succeeding the one where she died, she just isn't enough of an important character to hold a massive amount of emotional impact for a reveal an arbitrary number of patches down the road. All of the characters have effectively moved on from it, so it's not like anything's gonna change. They've done this before but it only worked because of the dead character's massive impact on the story as a whole, nothing like Tingyun. Now lets assume she's alive. Ok, well they've put themselves into a corner where she has to be alive or risk the type of bland-ish reveal I mentioned if she's dead, so even if she turns up later it's just an expected plot point. However I can't think of a single reason Phantylia would actually keep her alive unless her powers require it or something, and if welt's comments are anything to go by I doubt that's the case. So what, the lord ravager just knocked Tingyun out, put her in a burlap sack and threw her three planets down the line on the star rail's track? It feels pointless and like I can just see the devs setting this up as like an emotional reveal down the line but I don't see this causing any emotions beyond like "oh shit guess we're back on the Tingyun thing now". I do hope they surprise me and handle it in such a way that it's good storytelling, I'd be fine with either result if they can pull it off but like I wish they didn't seemingly set it up in such a way that either answer will result in disappointment.

[@rinoakirova1548]

I'd say HSR swings back and forth a lot between light hearted and downright depressing, it's a bit of tonal whiplash (Looking at March cheering while Bronya is crying over her mother's death). I personally enjoy how both ends of spectrum coexist but it's understandable to expect something different from the game. I'm on the hopium camp for Tingyun. It's very weird they'd make a playable character if their plan was to just kill her off. Story-wise, Dan Shu was way more important than Tingyun but she never got a unique design like Cocolia for example. Seems like a lot of work for just one shock scene. Moreover, it is implied that Tingyun was assaulted while traveling outside the Xianzhou, so there's a chance she's trapped in some distant lonely planet and only the Astral Express can find her. Believe, fellow foxian beauty lover!

[@Swallowtail01]

You always repeat, that she's dead, but she's not dead👍 She's missing as of right now. After what Yukong said, I'm sure we'll get a continuation and eventual reveal of her death or survival. And I also noticed the crew being like nothing happened at all. Only in scenes mentioning Tingyun they're sad. Only more reason to believe, that she's not dead. And if she comes back, she'll come as a 5* unit.

[@KenSevus]

Imagine if she's somehow survived but is stuck on another planet and BY CHANCE the trailblazers come across her but since she's now very frightened and cautious of everything trailblazers would have a hard time figuring out what the mysterious figure they've encountered on this new place is, and they're trying to catch the culprit who is stealing their supplies or something. That sounds like some kind of fanfic of star rail universe.

[@larsthememelord3383]

schizo tingyun arc?

[@clarkxl]

youre gonna hate penacony

[@renegat864]

Ex Hyperion Capitan: first time huh

[@someGuy-kl7cb]

so ive got a few theories. but the one im going to defend is that tingyun is actually part of the stellaron hunters. and hearing that she was alive there, even though she was working for them, is why they showed up there, and why kafka is so secretive on why they were there. and why they sort of just...appeared and left doing nothing. i dont actually remember them trying to accomplish anything. why i think this is because: ting yun is playable, and although playing as dead characters isn't WEIRD, from the beginning the two characters personalities were kind of...different, idk if i was the only one to notice this, but when i got ting yun, it was before the mission, so when i WAS introduced to her, i was sort of confused why the in game ting yun wasn't nearly as playful as she was in battle. which just means we have not seen the REAL ting yun yet. because if she was killed off, theres no reason for us to get a glimpse of her real personality. so by adding the oddities together: 1) why was kafkas group in this place, and just sort of left for no reason, 2) why is in game-dead ting yun different from playable ting yun 3) why did we host a funeral for a character who might not even be dead, can only mean one logical conclusion: the REAL ting yun is working for the stellaron hunters.

[@IdentityChrist]

Well made video. Love the RLM references. My favorite gacha is Nikke and sometimes I believe the viewpoint of "my favorite gacha character cannot meaningfully change/die" is what really drags down the otherwise great story of that game. In the most shocking, brutal and game-changing story line a beloved villain character does a 180 on her otherwise antagonistic personality and is promptly and poignantly killed off in a brutal sacrifice as her head blows up. In a storyline with horrifying scenes like this one, it still stood out and made me really get invested in the story. But that character is an SSR. And getting premium costumes. And appears in events. So to avoid anyone being upset, 5 minutes after her death, the story handwaves her head exploding and proudly claims that not only is she fine, nothing bad or consequential happened to her or any other character. That alone was enough to make me disinterested in the story for months and I won't ever have the sort of emotional investment in that game again. I don't blame people who get upset if the waifu they pulled for dies, I blame the developers for their cowardice, but I am not stupid enough to think that Nikke's inability to kill off anyone in an otherwise tense and dramatic story is in no way because of the whims of such fans.

[@hu9376]

In the LC "Post-Op conversation", we can clearly see Tingyun being treated by Natasha, this must be the devs hinting us about this character's future, that she somehow got to Belobog and is pretty much still alive. And yes, those LC artworks are canon events, they are simply condensed memory, created by the Memokeeper (March 7th got 1 at the end of her companion quest). It's so cool they put so many interesting side stories in the LC arts, some of which are even confirmed in the game lore. I personally think the odds and vagueness of whether she's dead or not is surely intensional. Being a playable character and not having a proper story and meaningful screen time just to be killed off like that is just simply pointless, the devs def knows the direction they're going with this character. Maybe her supposed "funeral" was a distraction, an emotional mean of enclosure of the Loufu arc and the baseline for the upcoming big reveal. I can't say for sure what's coming but I believe that Tingyun's role in the story hasn't yet come close to the end or even started in the first place. Anyway great content bro 👍. I do feel the same too playing the new Penacony quest, but given the full story isn't over, I sure have hope for the devs and the writting. For me those copium doses are parts of the fun and engaging experience this game's giving me, these ingame "dramas" are what get people talking, speculating and keep looking forward to the upcoming patches.

[@cupcakecula321]

Peace, peace is where you rest in.

[@eastonair]

Noooooooooo

[@kyero8724]

Tingyun could very well be hiding on the fucking Express, using her death as a excuse to go out and adventure who knows, can litearlly write anything into it the Lore is still insanely fresh and moldable.

[@pitioti]

I felt like there was two different will about Tingyun's death in HSR, on one hand, multiple time, it's said that "maybe it wasn't the real Tingyun and the real one is just doing her Business, we don't know", and then on the other hand we have the characters acting like it's sure she's dead (the Funeral Quest). It's either miscommunicasion in the different scenarist, or clumsy build up for when we will encounter the real Tingyun and rejoice.

[@Barni2212]

Agree 100%. Also even if she is alive. Is it matter, tho? THe Tingyun we have isn't a real one, even if she is alive somewhere else. The Tingyun we have will always be an impostor, a puppet of Panthylia. My very first main team was Clara-Tingyun-March-Natasha. I used this team for everything until Kafka came out (Thank God). I loved that team. But now since the core support character is dead, I don't even want to play it anymore. I play with Kafka team. I still see a slim possibility that they will bring her back but as a 5* unit. Like a reborn with IL Dan.

[@tsf9600]

Pal, I'm not sure if you did some research or if some other, older Hoyoverse player told you anything about this, but killing off a character mid-plot has been done before by Hoyo. Honkai Impact 3rd's Himeko was killed in the first third of the game, in a scene dripping with the grim finality of her fate. Despite this, there was no body to be found and many fans vehemently upheld this as proof that nothing was set in stone. For about *3 years* . Hoyo eventually confirmed she was very dead during the climax of the second third of the game, as there *was* no body to bury because it *melted* in another dimension, and then the in-universe characters (who'd ALSO been coping in the same way) finally accepted she was gone and gave her a proper burial ceremony. Despite this, nothing was stopping you from using Himeko in gameplay at any point between her going missing to the confirmation of her death, or after. It also didn't stop Hoyo from featuring her in every other event plotline because of the multiple Worlds. So, you know, you can declare Tingyun dead and be glad Hoyo decided to rip off the band-aid instead of leaving her fans coping for years, or you can hope for an Alt World plotline where she's actually alive and herself. Or cope for her eventual return with Yukong.

[@eastonair]

Yes. I have played HI3. I understand Hoyo has precedent for killing off playable characters. At the end of the video I state that I believe Tingyun is dead and that she will not return. There are several unique things to this situation vs. the HI3/Himeko one. HI3 and HSR have “Honkai” in the name, have a gacha monetization system, and there are some of the same characters. Not much else is the same.

[@emberthecatgirl8796]

We have Himekopium. What would this be? Fox-hope, but read as “Faux-hope”?

[@coriakacoron5851]

it's truly a great surprise to see code geass mentioned in this vid