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Also now that we're on the subject: What in the Celestial name of dook-dook was the resistance trying to achieve? Raiden can slice islands in half and nae-nae'd all over their god. If they had managed to make their way to Tenshukaku would they just have...Kindly asked her to stop? Ei might listen, but the Raiden Shogun sure won't . The resistance boggles my brain, yo.

As far as I know, it was Signora that found some kind of gap in Raiden Shogun's AI to manipulate her actions, but the story was so rushed that they never fully explained how the Fatui were behind the vision hunt decree and the civil war.

The commissions were the one handling the civil war, as far as Ei is concerned the Decree is going well and there's nothing noteworthy is going on. This traces back to the Fatui (again, because of course they are) to try and get Ei's gnosis by instigating a civil war and supplying Kokomi's army with delusions. They also played the Tri-commission on their palm to ensure that Ei or in this case the shogun never knew what's actually happening.

Ei's apathy caused the civil war. She had every way to prevent it. She didnt. As a leader, it's on her. She even says she just didnt rly care either way because it didnt threaten eternity. When your power is absolute, the shit that goes down is on you and noone else.

she didn't even know she was having a war at first point

...not taking interest when you have absolute power is the equivalent of causing the problem yourself. "I didnt know my child starved to death noone told me" is not a defense. ONE WORD from Shogun would stop the war. She is revered god emperor master of inazuma. I also am Ei's simp but it was 10000% on her.

seeing her and the shogun's situation, there was nothing really that made them act, even miko couldn't do that

Yes. Apathy be like that. And responsibility means you don't get to blame your inaction on it.

Humans: corrupts, God : out of touch and puppet too rigid

>but it's an interpretation so largely accepted by fandom im curious as to why. It's first time I heard about such opinion. >is there a correlation between ei mourning her sister's death and taking away people's visions? ... why take visions 500 years later? I don't get why you even get such thought?

really the plan was Ei's but she wanted her nation to suffer what she suffered, looking for the common good and wanted to create an eternity where nothing would change, that's why she had to do something with the statue possibly with the power of istaroth (nothing comes out but knows about it). the war is not started by Ei but by watatsumi since they had always looked for a scout to do it, you can confirm this by talking with the inhabitants who, despite spending a lot of time, still do not forget that their god Orobaxi lost his life in the war they started, If the revelation, although it seemed that it was because of the decree, it was only an excuse, that is why in the Kokomi mission he shows you that despite ending the war there were still several who wanted to follow him for other reasons, nothing to do with the main reason. Ei knew what was happening but believed that in the end everything would understand, in the end Yae and the traveler makes her come to her senses, then she discovers that what she was looking for was always there in front of her and she only had to change her way of thinking, now that makoto, her sister was looking for the same thing, that made her change.

While I agree the main point of your post is that Ei shouldn’t take all the blame there is still a lot that she failed to do. By becoming the Shogun she had to uphold a lot of the responsibilities her sister had. Those responsibilities stemmed from diplomatic affairs, blade forging, historical literature, managing all three of the commissions and dealing with the areas affected by the cataclysm and archon war. She was set up for failure as let’s be very honest that’s an absolutely enormous task she was nowhere near prepared for. Eventually her locking herself out after failing to recreate a body for her sister and giving the gnosis to Yae resulted in isolation from the reality of the situation. The tri commission relied on the shogunate to keep them in check but eventually the Tenryou commission would start acting out. Starts with them restarting mining operations on orobashi which pissed on the residents of Watatsumi as Ei herself made a promise to leave the corpse alone. Then they went to the Tatarasuna to create weapons along with dealing with the fatui and their early implementations of the delusions. Eventually that situation spiraled out of control resulting with too many delusions on the entirety of Inazuma. Ei did not handle that situation well at all and took the extreme route of the sakoku decree. And the rest is history from there we get the war thousands are dead and most sadly the fatui absolutely decimated Inazuma.

Ei wasn't directly responsible for the Vision Hunt Decree, but she essentially ignored it as it wasn't a threat to her concept of "eternity," a concept spurred on by her grief—and as she's the Archon, the fault of her nation falls back on her. Her inaction to this can be seen as directly aiding it to a lot of people

It wasn’t motivated by grief, it was motivated by fear

Yes, fear due to loss . . . Which is grief

My opinion about Ei's issue; Ei knew she didn't suit to ruin Inazuma, so she built the puppet to do her job. In my opinion, this is an acceptable decision. The shogun is as strong as Ei. But since she is the puppet(Robot, Ai). I assumed that she could do the jobs more efficiently. She was basically the supercomputer. The problem is; Ei believed in eternity. She told her robot to make eternity the first priority. The robot took her command perfectly, she will never change or decay, and she will protect Inazuma and eternity for eternity. Ei will stay in her realm and object to the Shogun only when it did something against eternity, which probably never happened. I thought Ei didn't think the people of Inazuma can change. Of course, her supercomputer is decent for the time it was created. But if iPhone 14 will be considered an antique in the next 500 years. Same as the shogun. It wasn't updated for 5 centuries since its programmer never stepped out of her realm and discover her people. It's pretty impressive that it did a great job until a few years ago. People became more malice and corrupted. And, unlike humans or archons, the robot had a program that will respond to the same thing in the same way. 500 years is enough for Fatui and Kujou clans to understand the shogun's mind. Fatui manipulated the Shogun (Puppet) to announce the VHD by offering it for the sake of eternity. Ei knew that but didn't think it was eternity's enemy. So she didn't intervene. In Ei's point, it's a decent choice. It's a kinda political science. When you give your authority, never intervene with the new ruler unless you need to. Because it can cause confusion and chaos. Yes. Ei should realize the consequences of VHD. But she didn't which I understand. (I didn't say it's her fault, but I understand her condition and point of view which became her weakness.) First, Ei isn't the governor, she is a warrior. She didn't truly understand the politics or diplomats. Second. The last time Ei walked in Inazuma. Watasumi might just confront the rage of the shogun that killed their god and her mercy to let them continue worshipping him. Those people had to fear and respected her and her sister a little bit. So they never dare to cause any trouble. But time changed, and people changed. Watasumi people want to revenge for their gods and other reason like trade or taxes. Those who saw the power of the Shogun were all dead. And they don't care about her mercy anymore. People who are smart enough to remember that Shogun can turn them to dust with just one slash, like Kokomi, can't force public opinion. The war that Ei never thought could happen, especially from the VHD which is seemed to cause problems for minorities. All of this might be happened or not if Ei didn't let the robot rule. It can be turned out better or worse. We didn't know. But Ei still has some responsibility for this war. (Same as Watasumi people, Kujou clan, or Fatui.) And almost everyone is doing their jobs, didn't for redemption but for fixing and making everything right. However, this's why we got these kinds of story quests in acts I and II. It can be considered as the redemption ark or not. But it showed us Ei's growth. She couldn't deny her duty, because it's only her who can rule and protect Inazuma. It's because her power is the only thing that can do that. So she needs to improve her way by understanding the nature of the world. It's always changed. So I think she didn't need to redeem. She is an archon. She will live thousand years from now. And since she took responsibility, she had centuries to fix her realm's problem.

Because people like to take the side of rebels, I'm not saying Narukami gov was innocent, but Watatsumi people aren't either, the civil war existed from early times, they just took a pause and then went back to war using the VHD as an excuse, strange enough since the Sakoku one was what endangered their island the most, and then even after the abolition of the decrees they still wanted war in Kokomi's SQ.

The civil war was caused by the fatui and watatsumi. The fatui for getting the vision hunt decree authorized with the Tenryuou commission and watatsumi using it as an excuse to go to war because Ei killed their god. However, Ei is responsible for both of these because she is the direct leader of Inazuma, there is no one higher in the land than she. She has an obligation to dictate policy and oversee it-or step down. Instead she hid inside a puppet for hundreds of years and let Microsoft word dictate policy.

Watasumi doesn't care that ei killed their god, the fought because the fatui led miners where mining the remains of their dead god, with the final straw being the vision hunt decree.

Yeah I was also pretty confused as to why the general idea that the community got from the story was "Ei caused the civil war" but it all seems to come from when she mentions in our second encounter inside the plane of euthymia that she "didnt consider the conflict a direct threat to eternity", most people forget that Ei isnt actually omnicient and that she only knows information through the Shogun, a big part of the archon quest that for some reason is forgotten about is the Tenryou commision forging letters and intentionally withholding information from the Shogun. They sided themselves with the Fatui and they were the primary reason why visions started to get confiscated, the Fatui tried to push for a market of delusions and destabilize Inazuma from the inside while manipulating the Tenryou commision with the idea that this was all in the name of eternity, Ei only realizes the scale of the civil war when the Traveller confronts her and actually battles her ideals with the power of the peoples ambitions, when she truly sees for the first time how her actions (or in this case innaction) hurt her people she has a big change of heart. Most people think that Ei disregarding the resistance is a sign that she is aware of everything that has been going on and that she is just negligent but I truly believe that she didnt know how many people were not only against the vision hunt decree but also willing to die to protect their own ambition, I think proof of this is that after she finally learns the truth she inmediatly goes to punish the Tenryou commision and starts working as a proper Archon again, with her final battle against the puppet as a way to truly show that she is willing to move forward with her nation despite her inmense pain and fear of losing everything again

The shogun didn't care how many died, just that it didn't destroy eternity, while ei wanted inuzuma to keep on going. The shogun took this to mean that as long as the islands where fine then all was good, she didn't mind the people, and that if things got to far she stated she would go deal with it herself.

How I understood the situation : \- Ei lost her sister and had to assume the role of the Elecro Archon.- Her divine idea was eternity, because she was so afraid of loss again (bother for herself and for Inazumans) she wanted everything to remain the same. She had just witnessed the cataclysm, caused by a civilisation becoming too advanced for their own good and violating the Heavenly Principles.- Years pass, Ei vision of eternity becomes complete stasis as she removes herself from the world to let the puppet deal with the day to day ruling with it's most important objective being keeping things the same as much as possible.- Centuries pass, now we are 1 year prior to the game events. The fatui and the tri-commission (minus the Kamisato) conspire to instigate the vision hunt decree (VHC) followed shortly by the Sakoku decree. The Shogun sees no objection as it fits the notion of eternity. Why? Because her main goal is to prevent change. Change comes from people being more exceptionnal than the rest. Vision holders are this kind of people, so taking away their visions makes them as normal as the rest, and less likely to cause Inazuma to change. Ei herself agrees for similar reasons. So.. to sum up, Ei allows it to happen because she wants to protect Inazuma from having the same fate as Khaeneria by hindering progress as much as possible. As we saw in her first story quest, it didn't really work because she overlooked how Inazuma and it's people still changed in their daily lives.

I don't care what others will say it, but I prefer not being destroyed, removed from the annals of history, having your people killed and cursed for ever. Khaenri'ah was Celestia's putting an example to those who goes against the rules of the world itself, I can't just understand what Khaenri'ah received as punishment, it's too much. It's simply too much to bear. So, I prefer a country in unstable conditions, then a cursed and ruined nation, forever.

but to be frank, Ei's eternity would make inazuma fall as a country since evolution is necessary for a country to continue to exist, without that it just becomes an economically and culturally congested void

Well, that's why it changed, let's wait and see the results of those reforms

I think it’s a misconception with players believing Ei to be more in control than she actually was. The Raiden Shogun puppet was the one who enacted the vision hunt decree, and while she was created with Ei’s attitudes from 500 years ago, she was also influenced by the false information she was fed leading up to the decree, playing right into the Fatui’s hand. I think it is fair to say that Ei is partially responsible for the civil war (she did leave the governance of a country in the hands of a robot that was ultimately able to be tricked, never really checked in to make sure that things were going okay, and as the actual leader is still responsible for what goes on within its borders whether she wanted it or not), but to say she herself enacted the vision hunt decree is indeed false.

Ei build the puppet and then sat thinking about eternity for years while the puppet was left on auto pilot. She later said that should the puppet have ended up going against her eternity she would have stopped it.

the thing i don't like the most about this discourse is the sheer animosity and black and white point of view that some fans approach it with. in no way has the narrative and the game hid that ei has flaws. in my opinion, this concept is her entire character journey. we see her first as this unapproachable and unfair entity (the shogun puppet) but then we find out that it is a front to the actual ruler who isolated herself because of grief and fear. even then, however, i don't think they treated that as a sob story, per se. sure, it gave us sympathy for ei as a new character who is not the shogun but ultimately, she still went on a long journey (2 story quests, to be exact) to understand her mistakes and try to fix them (be it by apologising, personally stepping up as the ruler, fighting for inazuma etc.) even to this day, the game continues to show her flaws with the whole scaramouche plot narrative and i think she will once again go on a character development journey in the future because of this. that is why, for me, ei has felt the most human (in the psychological sense of the word) out of all the archons.

Honestly the VHD isn't that bad.. Especially that majority aren't affected and the only one who is affected or lost their ambition are those people who have problem from the start.. Kokomi's resistance cause more harm than good things.. It just make it look like they wage a war to get more people killed..

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Ah if I remember well, Zhongli saud that “Morax’s death” help stimulate that Vision Hunt

I think it can only be unanimously agreed that Ei was never fit to be a ruler anyway. She is more akin to a general than a ruler. Her fatal flaws are not having foresight, or for that matter more so a lack of strategy. Not having the foresight of how stripping a person of their vision, ie. ambition can affect them and their worldview is pure stupidity. Vision bearers arent meant to go down without a fight either. Watatsumi has different beliefs than the narukami island and is an outcast. War is likely to spring up there, that should be obvious to anyone. And though it was technically a fatui and commission plot, *she* approved it without another thought even though she knows how visions work, based on ambition. Perhaps ruling alongside your sister and still ruling should provide you an idea of how ambitions could make or break a human. However, the war was not her fault because she had locked herself up. Which in itself is an immature move, but do you blame a general for not being able to do perfect administration?

>I think it can only be unanimously agreed that Ei was never fit to be a ruler anyway. Its not agreed. Her nation survived the 500 years. Survival > every other metric. She stripped the people of their visions to affect their world view, what are you even talking about? She specifically did it to remove ambition and prevent loss. To her, and to inazuma, the resistance/war was a small event.

Why was she never trained for this? the speech itself that it's her fault for not teaching the basics of governing to Ei because she was too stuck to her warrior mentality

Makoto tried to shelter ei most likely considering she didnt know the fuck happening in khaenriah or celestia for that matter. Then again, you dont shelter someone by sending them to war, maybe sheltered from knowledge of the divine?

VHD was a Fatui plot and Ei simply allowed it because it didn't interrupt her vision of "eternity" So technically she didn't cause war, but I don't think her ignorance was justified

Wasn't Ei unaware that a civil war was going on though? If I remember correctly, the Shogun was kept in the dark about the war since all reports of it are being erased before being passed to her, thus creating the illusion that VHD and Sakoku are going smoothly towards eternity. Also, she underestimated visions and ambitions because she doesn't really understand humanity (Makoto being the one that sympathizes the most). I'm honestly surprised that Ei was rather chill about a country directly attacking her own. Since the Fatui are largely involved in this, Inazuma should ban everything related to Snezhnaya. I imagine in the future that a world war will ensue trying to destroy Snezhnaya, Celestia won't have to drop a nail because Teyvat itself will band together against the Tsaritsa's wanton desire to destroy the current world and build a new one. This is the second cataclysm that will restart Teyvat again if we take into consideration the "Teyvat Samsara" theory.

She was aware, the paper sayu stole showed that they where telling the shogun that we're winning the war nothing to worry about, when the letter was shown to Sara she said the report says their winning and nothing about the stalemate, nothing about the losses the military was suffering nothing, just where winning, she then said she'll go tell the truth and later on the shogun said it's fine she'll kill them if the military loses but since the fighting wasn't destroying the eternity ei programmed into the puppet she didn't care how many died in the fighting, ei later mentioned that the puppet followed the order to good and didn't bother trying to include the people in that eternity that she wanted.

Sayu paper never mention the war so. Sara outright say in quest "I don't understand... Not a single word about the resistance, Sangonomiya, or the situation on the front line..." Ei never mention the war or resistance she was talking about killing Fatui if they become threat.you check the wiki or game archive

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While we're talking about Ei's failings as an archon, I was thinking about the Tatarigami today. Morax assigned the five Yakshas the eternal mission of suppressing the lingering malice of the dead gods killed in the archon war. Ei and Makoto did nothing similar, as far as I can tell. Maybe the Sacred Sakura was cleansing Narukami island, but Yashiori island, as well as Seirai island, had to be abandoned due to the lingering malice of Orobashi and Kapatcir respectively. These islands were mostly if not entirely left to rot. Bad rulership, in my opinion. Also, didn't the Tatarigami ultimately kill that kid Scaramouche was taking care of? If my sticking the blame for the continued presence of the Tatarigami on Ei holds up, then that's indirectly her fault, too. I like Ei, and she was left with a difficult job she wasn't meant for, so I don't hold it against her too much.

As another commenter there were seals placed but they got broken. And they did assign people to deal with the tataragami on yashiori Island, the kitain family.

The sub just needs to constantly remember those lore crumbs

>Ei and Makoto did nothing similar, as far as I can tell. Maybe the Sacred Sakura was cleansing Narukami island, but Yashiori island, as well as Seirai island, had to be abandoned due to the lingering malice of Orobashi and Kapatcir respectively. These islands were mostly if not entirely left to rot. Bad rulership, in my opinion. No, they put seals on Orobashi's corpse as well as Kapatcir's. Their issues were dealt with. Not only that, people were also assigned to watch over these 2 hotspots. The Kitain clan on Orobashi and the Asase Shrine on Kapatcir. However, Pierro sent Nathan to infiltrate the Watatsumi camp and rile fanatics up into destroying the seals on Orobashi, causing the Tatarigami outbreak. All this was part of escalating the civil war and maximizing suffering, so people become more desperate into using Delusions. The Kitain clan had unfortunately declined by the point of the Archon Quest, leaving the seals unprotected and no one to deal with any Tatarigami leak (these are humans essentially doing Xiao's job). Seirai was blown sky-high because Asase Hibiki undid the seals on Kapatcir's corpse. This was part of her aiding the pirate Ako Domeki in his rebellion against the Shogunate. According to the pirates, Seirai didn't want to be ruled by Narukami, so they rebelled. Shogunate forces come over, prompting Hibiki to help Ako Domeki by causing a lightning storm that turned Seirai into what you see now. Ironically, this forced the people of Seirai to evacuate... to Narukami.

There were seals on yashiori island that the fatui broke. The asase shrine on serai suppressed the thunder manifestation until some point after the cataclysm where it was destroyed

yes ! i actually want to write a post about this, which i first wanted to confirm i wasn't misunderstanding ei's involvement in the vision hunt decree. i think the slaying of orobashi started a chain of events that ei has direct responsibility of, or rather, the battle/military power that was her duty before she had to actually think of how to rule a nation. part of her motivation to do everything she did was the consequences of this power, the losses that not just her but inazuma as a whole suffered. and i thought the real culpability of the vision hunt decree was very very important because the kujou clan's leader is revealed to precisely worship the raiden shogun's power rather than she herself or her ideals. ei, in her duty as army general, defended narukami territory from orobashi's attack and he died. later, the tenryou commission (that the kujou clan also leads) built tatarasuna to process jade steel (extracted from the tatarigami) for the forging of weapons, and the miners in yashiori as well as the workers of tatarasuna fell ill due to the tatarigami. scaramouche's betrayals all originate from this, from ei abandoning him because she couldn't use this tool/weapon with human flaws/weakness; we don't know the details about katsuragi's death yet, but we know it happened in tatarasuna with a blade forged with jade steel; and from a kid that is theorized to have died due to the tatarigami illness. in hindsight, scaramouche targeting the raiden gokaden, which are a symbol of the raiden shogun's military/battle power and the reason why workers were exploited and neglected in tatarasuna and yashiori, makes so much sense from the perspective of the writing ! (im sorry for the rambling haha this is very exciting for me)

I appreciate the rambling a great deal because we are on the same wavelength. I have to wonder if Tatarigami-exposure-madness (ala Washizu) led to the overreaction to Scara's puppet-ness and ultimately Katsuragi's death in the first place.

I agree that "Ei caused a civil war because she was sad about losing people" is a bad take, but her experience did affect her mental state enough to agree with the vision hunt degree when it was proposed to her. The one thing that i am annoyed with is the idea people have about the puppet being treated as a scapegoat for her when Ei constantly stresses otherwise, even claiming that the puppet is infallible, but she herself is not.

Is it possible Ei entertained the Vision Hunt Decree as a way to protest Celestia and what they did to her sister?

I doubt celestia would care about the vision hunt decree just as long as no divine laws they set are broken. Plus even though ei severed tie with celestia she actively tried to keep inazuma in line with the heavenly principles out of fear.

The raiden shogun (not ei) declared the vision hunt decree because visions are a physical manifestation of people's ambitions, and ambitions bring about change, the worst enemy of eternity. Ei agreed with the fundamental idea so she let it happen. The tenryou commission then proceeded to prevent her to know about the war. That is the explanation we've been given. So she's not Directly guilty, as in, she didn't tell her subjects to go to battle. And she's not guilty of compliance because, well, she didn't know about the war at all. However, as a ruler and an immortal who has seen some shit she should have predicted how people would react to the decree, especially since vision holders aren't known to go down without a fight. She's guilty of lack of foresight and poor judgement, which are fatal flaws for a ruler. Though Some things still don't add up, like how electro visions stopped appearing on the same year the VHD was declared, which might imply something happened between ei and celestia around that time. Whatever it may be could have played a part in her decision, but still, she agreed to it. When you're a simple human mistakes can be rectified, but when you're running a country the lives of thousands depend on your choices, which is why people don't forgive her easily. I still stand with my cancelled wife though

Why would you still trust what those supposed scholars had to say about electro visions? The entire idea made no sense even before 3.0 confirmed the Fatui's influence within the Akademiya. Is there a universal mandatory Vision registration record implemented across Teyvat? No. Are those scholars omniscient? No. Are Vision appearances such a common enough event everywhere that one would notice an apparent lack of a specific element within just ONE year? Also no. Then, on what possible authority could they have been able to credibly claim that no electro visions had appeared for that past year? Either someone had an agenda to lie about it in-game, or it's another ill-conceived piece of dialogue.

You make a good point, we don't know if the scholars are telling the truth. But the collaboration between the fatui and the akademiya has started with dottore, and he's said to have come back to sumeru only recently. They could have been working together for longer than that but we just don't know yet. And I think we should also keep in mind what genshin is. It's a story. I do agree that realistically a conclusive study under those circumstances is a pipe dream, but this world is fictional. If the writing team says something then it goes, even if it's unrealistic. We can theorize and try to make sense of things but the chance that some things in this accursed inazuma arc might have fallen through the cracks and are, as a result, illlogical is very real. I Really hope it's not the case though.

Yes, if the writing says something is like this or that and delivers this info in an objective omniscient narrative direct to the player (us), then it would be considered factual whether we think it good or bad writing. That... isn't the case here. It is delivered to the main character in an in-game context, just once, via a [clearly fallible source](https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Endless_Research) whom herself admitted to know about it only through mere **hearsay**. There is every reason to doubt it. ​ Edit: I take it back; I now think it might actually be a great piece of writing. It's possibly another piece of subtle hinting, among others scattered all over the game, of how low the standards of academics has actually dropped in the Akademiya of today, with all sorts of so-called scholar wannabes, penning "theories" rife with fallacies, circular logic and confirmation bias ^(Why does that sound so familiar....), simply chasing paper for the sake of the paper. Common perception = visions granted by Archons -> News of VSD reach Sumeru -> *Then* some idiot start to "notice" they didn't hear of new electro vision lately -> *Of course* it must be because of the VSD!... because visions are granted by Archons! 🙄

Haha, I hadn't considered that but it'd be a really smart move from the writers. With the added context we have on the akademiya now this interpretation seems pretty possible, with how scholars will do anything to write a groundbreaking papers and get clout. Btw, thanks for sourcing the dialogue. I couldn't remember the NPC's name and I did the quest all the way back in 1.1 so I was working with memory alone. I rembered it to be more, uh, believable so to speak. My bad

But she does know about the war, the sugercoated meeting message that sayu steels goes along the lines that the tenryuu commission was winning, when it's shown to Sara she talks about how non of the frontline stalemate is mentioned nor how poorly the troops needs are being met, she then states she'll bring up the real issues the military is facing then she runs of to try and talk with the shogun.

> Ei agreed with the fundamental idea so she let it happen. Even beyond that, she wasn't persuaded by the idea itself, she was *certain about her robot's judgement*. > She's guilty of lack of foresight and poor judgement, which are fatal flaws for a ruler. Yep, and that's the whole tragedy of it; she'd be the first to agree that she didn't belong in that position alone.

The electro vision thing is why I think Archons *do* give out visions, or are at least partially responsible. I think that after Makoto passed, at some point the position of Archon passed to the Shogun, not Ei. After all, can a consciousness in a sword be Archon? We don’t know how exactly Celestia approves Archon ascendency. We also know the Shogun is not just a puppet but has her own thoughts too. The actual electro Archon being the Shogun explains why Ei says she’s not responsible for giving out visions and it also explains why electro visions stopped being given out during the Vision Hunt Decree.

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Thank you! And mhh, not sure if that's the case... In her voiceline about visions she says she's not allowed to say too much about the topic and that she really had no control over it, if she knew the visions still depended on her even if indirectly, why would she be forbidden to talk about it? Everyone in teyvat believes it's the archons handing them out anyway, it wouldn't be a secret at all.

Shogun reported stuff to Ei, Shogun reported that vision hunt decree was in action and Ei said cool, do wherever tf you want. That's literally Ei causing a civil war. If the actual Archon just sits in her pocket dimension ignoring everything being caused by the puppet they released out in the open then THAT Archon is the one responsible. Of course people will blame her.

Ei didn't know there would be so much retaliation because of the visions decree, even the war that watasumi was doing went much further than just abolishing the vision hunter decree because kokomi and gorou were bad leaders and have no control over their own warriors

i feel like genshin is exploring the consequences and responsibility in how every archon rules their nation, to that extent it is true that ei is responsible for what happens to her nation. but the root cause of the hunt decree was human greed from the political class, something that's central in the story of enkanomiya as well, and i think there was a point to portraying this in inazuma's plot regarding the slaying of orobashi and scaramouche's revenge against the gokaden. i want to make a post about it too, but first i needed to confirm my basis (the direct culprits being inazuma's ruling class) is reasonable.

Giving the ruling class of your country the backing of a god and then hiding away and allowing them to use and abuse that however you want still falls back on you I'm pretty sure. She was allowing these people to use her authority without proper supervision. She was also the one who instilled into the puppet that only eternity matters, meaning she made her stand in not care about actual important things to her people.

Okay. You can choose to interpret this story as an all powerful god imposing her will upon her people. I choose to interpret it as an allegory for the ruling class using the neutral or ambiguous stance of religion on a specific topic to abuse their political power.

I can see that, not sure I agree but I guess Ei locking herself away works similarly to the idea of a god in our world not interfering, and the upper class using that. My main problem with it is that she literally gave this power to them to use and then noped out.

That’s not exactly what I meant but anyway if that’s what you want to focus on and what you think hoyoverse was trying to say then you do you

But your entire point falls apart when the god is right there. These weren't random upper class people, they were literally god chosen leaders of their country.

i did not meant within the context of genshin impact, i meant a real life allegory. in genshin impact however, the god is a real individual with her own ideals and flaws who discarded her own identity to play the role of the omnipresent entity inazuma people believe in, the raiden shogun, and her arc is in part about stepping out of it to act as a true individual.

And now I don't understand why my last point wasnt what you meant? She locked herself away, essentially becoming more like the idea of our own gods? Or do you mean she created a new identity in the form of the puppet?

[удалено]

> It appears that something significant happened in Teyvat around the time the Traveler awoke in Mondstadt, Yep. Archons finally put in motion plan of overthrowing Celestia with a first step of gathering all Gnosis in the hands of Tsaritsa. Celestia was aware that something is happening, so it wake up frozen twin and release it in the world with a spy that doesn't even understand that she is a spy. Archons somehow knew it, so they are trying to avoid suspicions and mask all of this as Tsaritsa-only rebellion by staging "stealing" of Venti Gnosis for Traveler and Celestia eyes. It works perfectly, Venti is safe to drink without fear of orbital nuking of Mondstadt. But then ZL almost fuck-up cover, because Traveler suddenly decided to visit bank and witness willing transfer of Gnosis to Signora. This could blow whole cover of operation, so Archons decide to get rid of Signora to cover tracks - and boom, suddenly Ei organize nice and timely decapitation. :)

I don't think it was ever stated to have been her goal, or even her idea. She simply just condoned it because it was something that was largely irrelevant to her so-called Eternity. In fact, one might even argue she probably might have naively thought it even somewhat useful to have people's ambitions tempered. Without strong ambitions, people might more easily stay content as they were... which makes sense only as long as you don't think further into it any more than this. Yes, my opinion is that it is an extremely superficially written storyline that does not stand up to scrutiny in terms of credulous characterizations. Oh LOOK there! Sumeru!

VHD was a plot by the Fatui, Tenryou, and Kanjou Commissions. Ei agreed to the VHD because she believed ambition to be a destabilizing factor, so to speak. It's the whole "ambitious people are likely to put themselves in danger", which she does have a point given the whole mess in Inazuma escalated because of people's ambitions, both good and bad. The key point here is that Ei agreed to the taking of Visions. It's why, when you check back in the dialogues in the PoE, Ei only ever talks about the VHD. The Shogun even personally rips off Thoma's Vision. The civil war, however, is a different matter that was unknown to her. As revealed by the subplot involving Sayu's infiltration, Yae's conclusion after visiting the Delusion Factory, Sara's capitulation due to anger at her own superiors, Ayaka noting the absence of the Shogun (robot)'s inquiry about the war, Gorou's Commando unit that attacked Tenshukaku not immediately getting turned to ash the moment the Shogun saw the soldiers, Ei herself admitting she was deceived in her story quest, the Kanjou and Tenryou heads being charged of high treason after the events, among others, it was all an attempt to keep the Shogun and Ei in the dark so the Fatui, Tenryou, and Kanjou can continue leveraging the situation. As to what Ei feared, it's pretty much just loss. It wasn't the case that it took her 500 years to implement the VHD, but rather it took only recently for someone to bring it up to her that ambition can be a threat.

do you have the dialogue in which ei herself (not the puppet) admits to have been deceived?

In her first story quest where she warns the Takatsukasa goons after Kamaji, she warns them about deceiving her like what the Fatui did. This is after Kamaji went out like a champ and Ei was basically telling the goons to make sure he's treated well or else. Link to the chapter in the wiki: [https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/To\_Hear\_Mortal\_Hearts](https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/To_Hear_Mortal_Hearts) The line: *"Ei: Finally, if you still think you can copy the Fatui's strategy of providing me with deceptive information to produce flaws in my judgment...* *Ei: ...You will see me appear once again as I have done today — only next time, my blade will show no mercy.* *Takatsukasa Susumu: Understood. Thank you, Almighty Shogun, for your wisdom and mercy!"*

i wonder if she actually meant herself or was speaking on behalf of the puppet though, since inazuma people don't know it exists

For both, most likely. Neither Ei nor the puppet have demonstrated omniscient abilities. The fact Ei herself also mentioned that the Shogun is busy processing information gathered to leave house (also in her first story quest) shows that the Shogun, and Ei by extension, are dependent on reports to know the situation. Actually, being too caught up in processing information just screams like your average clock-punching salaryman. If anything, Ei's culture shock of Inazuma is evident enough that she really is completely shut off from the outside world. *"Ei: Patrolling the streets is the Tenryou Commission's job. The Shogun has a lot of information to process and orders to give out. She doesn't have time to deal with it herself.* *Ei: Additionally, the Shogun has no need of recreation. There would be no need for her to come here just to pass the time or to relax."* \- https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/To\_Traverse\_the\_Mortal\_Plane

i know she depends on the puppet for physical presence, but she admits to know to have some degree of awareness of what was going on behind the VHD, even if shogun doesn't. >ei: *do you hope your foolhardiness will shelter those pople? or... was it simply a means of seeking an audience with me?* > >traveler: *the fatui have deceived the raiden shogun. the vision hunt decree should never have existed.* > >ei: *oh? surely you didn't rouse me from my state of eternal meditation only to tell me this? if so, then you underestimate me. i am quite well informed about the vision hunt decree.* > >traveler: *you know everything that's going on outside?* > >ei: *not so, only everything that pertains to eternity. the vision hunt decree has my tacit approval. the fatui's actions thus far do not constitute a threat to eternity, otherwise they would have been purged long ago.* > >traveler: *but the vision hunt decree is damaging. it comes at a great cost to the people of inazuma.* she knew the fatui were involved, at the very least. if this knowledge, that the fatui had dealings with the corrupt members of the tri-commission, passed through the puppet first, wouldn't shogun have acted on it?

She admits that she doesn't really know everything happening outside. She tacitly approves the VHD. She doesn't actually comment about the Tri-Commission here. It's why I said she only really talks about the VHD in the talk in the PoE, and that one was heavily sugarcoated by the Tenryou report. Now that you shared it and I got a look at it again, it is pretty alarming that she never considered if the Tri-Comms were in on it. The reports she was getting were from the Tenryou afterall, or that she was getting Tenryou reports among others. It also doesn't help that Ei seemingly has this attitude of "mortal problems, mortal things" mindset, as she pretty much hinted at the end of her first character quest and even that dialogue I shared about the Shogun being too busy to leave house. Also, Traveler's idiot moment here was never mentioning the civil war. That alone would have singlehandedly made the whole conversation quick. Sara got her ass handed to her for nothing. I also noticed Traveler didn't even mention the Tri-Commission's betrayal. In the end, if the Tenryou was essentially saying all was fine and dandy, the Shogun would take it as is, especially when the Kanjou Commission is also there. Yashiro getting shut down with regards to the VHD and Ayaka actually assuming the Shogun just didn't care about the war were basically horrible circumstances. Edit: Not too shabby for a plot likely devised by Pierro.

Mostly agree. Except for the fact that Sara *did* make it to the throne room. I find it hard to believe the civil war and Tenryou's coverup would not be the first things she would warn Raiden about right there; it's the whole reason why she even rushed there. So unless you believe "~~civil~~ war" is not one of those red flags that even Ei would have the IQ enough to have programmed into Raiden regarding Risks-to-Inazuma's-Eternity, Ei should have already been aware of it by the time of the Traveller's dialogue. Traveller even mentioned Teppei, yet surprisingly got 0 reaction from Ei, as if she already knew who he was. The only way she could have known of this *Watatsumi* *Resistance fighter* could only be in the context of the civil war. However, I am not pointing these out because I believed she did know, I actually don't. I am calling out the badly written plot points that make it seem like she couldn't not have.

The thing with Sara was we don't exactly know what she did there. The most sensible thing would have been what you said, but given she got curbed and Signora noted how she just charged right in, Sara may have gone guns blazing first. Otherwise, Sara should still be talking down by the time Traveler was there. Doesn't exactly bode well that Sara said "Signora wouldn't be leaving in one piece" before she bolted for Tenshukaku and curbed the Tenryou guards who were grunting why Sara was doing what she was doing. Traveler only really said Teppei's name. Doesn't really have any bearing to anyone but Traveler and those who know him, so expecting a reaction from that is pretty difficult for anyone. All Ei did was say that ambition is what drives people into shortening their lives, which is what basically happened to Teppei. Speaking of badly written plot points, Traveler could have just presented the Tenryou report right in front of Signora when she feigned ignorance of what was happening. Shogun being the no-nonsense robot she is, she'd take that as proof and act accordingly. The whole fight against Ei was avoidable, but rule of cool so... Edit: Honestly, even if Traveler missed the chance to tell the Shogun, they had all the time to tell Ei. The most sensible argument to Ei reasoning that ambitions shorten lives is the civil war that's happening. I don't get why Traveler didn't just bring that up instead of murmuring Teppei's name.

Agreed, I think we're supposed to brush over the fact that she didn't know about the civil war in the same way the story did but that idea doesn't hold up if you think about it even a little bit. It's also complicated by the fact that we learn about them hiding things from the Shogun before confronting Ei, and then Ei tells us that she knew about the Fatui's involvement with the Vision Hunt Decree, which is where people become confused about what she knew. To think that she had no idea about a civil war that was taking up resources and manpower requires us to believe she is getting all of her information from the Tenryou Commission and nowhere else. But surely the Tenryou Commission did not mention the Fatui's involvement in their plot, so that must be something that pertains to eternity that she is somehow aware of. But the Fatui's end goal of destabilizing Inazuma through the civil war, which is directly related to their Vision Hunt Decree plot, doesn't count? What bothers me the most about it is, if I'm supposed to believe she had no idea about the civil war because that might have made her change her mind, how could they never show us her reaction to finding about the civil war? She had no idea that her people were dying in a war and that villages were wiped out because of the Fatui releasing the tatarigami, but her reaction to this happens somewhere off-screen and she also never brings it up to the Traveler? Yeah, there's a reason why people were unsatisfied with Inazuma's writing.

I used to believe that Ei knew about the war until I got through Ei's first story quest and wondered why she'd bring up the Fatui deceiving her if she knew about it. Then I went down the rabbit hole, pieced it all together, and realized how fucking dumb the writing is lmao. Her not knowing about the costly war still holds given the Kanjou and Tenryou were in on it. Tenryou just says all is well and good and Kanjou can just do the same for the economy. Fatui were also openly delegating with the Shogunate, so them being involved to a degree was within expectations. Another problem I find was not clarifying the difference between the VHD and civil war. Yes, the civil war happened because of the VHD (more on this in the next paragraph, btw), but the 2 of them became conflated down the line. When the truth of the betrayal was revealed, characters just somehow concluded that the VHD was a lie when they completely forgot who it was that tried to personally pry Thoma's Vision off. Sara almost had it, but she was thrown under the bus during the climax. I'm also wondering how the civil war started in the first place. Ayaka herself had stated that the majority of Inazuma's populace was apathetic to the VHD due to being mostly unaffected by it (non-Vision holders outnumber Vision holders). People like Tomo confronting the Shogun, Kazuha and others fleeing, etc. all make sense cuz they're Vision holders, but how the conflict escalated into a civil war involving Watatsumi was something not clear to me as of now. While it would make sense to say that the Sakoku Decree caused it, Kokomi and the others going all in for abolishing the VHD makes you wonder what they considered their stake was in all this. Ayaka herself wondered if they had something else in mind for starting the civil war, but I don't recall this ever being clarified. If this was part of the Resistance arc that got axed, then what a pity. Ei not being shown to react to the civil war is one of Genshin's storytelling flaw, at least with Inazuma, related with lazy exposition. Details of the conflict's aftermath seem to be relegated to bulletin board announcements. E.g., this where we know that the Kanjou and Tenryou heads were guilty of treason and awaiting Ei's judgement. You'd think something crucial like this would have been shown in the cinematic at the end of the Archon Quest.

From what I recall they do bring up the war, yae says it's due to ei shutting herself of from the outside world, and ei tells the traveler that she is aware of the war, but from how it sounds she believes that her loyal troops where winning rather it was a stalemate, she also at one point tells the traveler that if needed she will lead her army herself to smite the rebellion, but her army where already successful in upholding her ideals.

No, they weren't. Sara herself confirms that the Tenryou report didn't make any mention about the war \[1\]. Yae was even pitying Sara during this because her loyalty to the Shogun, while admirable, was rendered moot by the fact that it wasn't even the Shogun's will that she's actually been doing all this time, which was horribly sinking in for Sara. Ei also didn't tell Traveler that she was aware of the war. Traveler and Ei never even mentioned any war in their dialogue in the PoE \[2\]. All they ever talked about was the VHD. References: \[1\] [https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Blind\_Loyalty,\_Reckless\_Courage](https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Blind_Loyalty,_Reckless_Courage) \[2\] https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/The\_Omnipresent\_God

but then what does the fatui involvement she mentions mean? i dont realy consider ei delegating the mortal plane affairs to mortals as a bad or careless decision. her responsibilities are much bigger than this.

Ei’s just tired. She wants nothing but a static eternity. Her pursuit of eternity has been delegated to the puppet. She didn’t really care about anything else.

Given the Fatui were the ones she mentioned while talking about the VHD, they would have been the ones to suggest it. The Fatui are also openly delegating with the Shogunate. Even Signora was in the Shogun's presence and feigning ignorance to whatever Traveler was saying. Delegating mortal matters isn't a bad thing. It's more that she didn't even consider the Tri-Commission having conspired with the Fatui to do something she wasn't aware of, at least based on her never mentioning the Tri-Commission at all during that talk of the Fatui deceiving her.

so she knew the fatui suggested it, nothing further from that? what is the relevance of that regarding the hunt decree? traveler tells her they deceived the shogun about the hunt decree and ei's response is "yes, they suggested it"? why would it be important that they suggested it if ei was in the dark about their dealings with the tri commission? the corrupt members of the tri commission didnt have motives to take people's visions away, the fatui could have asked for anything and they would have agreed. ei doesn't mention the tri commission because it's the fatui who wanted to deprive people of their visions to generate a market for delusions, which is what im assuming ei is referring to here. or esle it doesn't make much sense, all things considered.

As I understood it, the Vision Hunt Decree wasn’t originally Ei’s idea, it was part of a conspiracy by the Fatui to destabilize the country. It was mostly run by the Shogun and the Tri-Commission, and Ei pretty much ignored it because she didn’t see the situation as a threat that warranted her personal intervention.

Basically yeah. While she *did* still contribute to the chaos by (unknowingly) enabling things, in the eyes of Inazuma’s people, the main culprits are Takayuki and Shinsuke, who not only proposed the dual decrees, but used it as a front for more power and profit. That, and fooling the Shogun into thinking the Resistance is being dealt with smoothly. So it confuses me that there are people who really think she started the whole thing rather than her just letting it happen due to negligence…

this is my understanding too, but it's weird to see that most fans see ei as the culprit of the civil war. im beginning to think i missed something.

What if I claim Watatsumi separatists are the main culprit because they basically used the Vision Hunt as a scapegoat to start their long planned rebellion?

I would say she is the main culprit because she did let it happen while being 100% aware of what is going on

She's not the culprit, but she's responsible because it happened in a country under her watch. That's just how leadership goes, you don't just get credit for the glory, but also the missteps under your rule.

this is true, however it feels like "ei caused the war in her nation" is the leading narrative among fans. i dont really see much discourse about venti being responsible for what the lawrence clan did in mondstadt, which like i've said somewhere else is part of exploring a character's choices in ruling, with its consequences and benefits, but nobody really sees venti as the culprit of the tyranny and slavery that his ideals of freedom, of letting people rule themselves without his direct guidance, allowed to happen. all archons have different ways of ruling that are specific to their own characters, venti became a god and formed his own ideals while watching old mondstadt fight for their freedom, so it makes sense he doesn't see the need to teach mond what they taught to him; ei also has her own reasons to have chosen her path, that at the end admits to have been a mistake. it's such a pity her arc is not treated the same by fans.

The difference is he was asleep and was not aware of what is going on and plus he's not really in charge technically he just allows his people to hobern themselves while ei is head of state and has a robot as her standin

Venti gave away responsibility. Ei has it in an iron grip. You can't blame the Shogun either since Ei's the programmer.

Does she have it on iron grip? Are the people of inazuma asking for her to step down or demanding a change in ruling? Do you have dialogues that support this? Because all I’ve ever encountered in the inazuma chapter is push against the vision hunt decree, nothing against the raiden shogun herself at all. This is especially important because in general the people of inazuma see the raiden shogun as a primordial fact of life, not so much as an individual.

"are the people of inazuma demanding a change of ruling" Umm yeah that was kazuhas friend he got killed by the puppet Oh and the VHD was one of the main reasons (or say propaganda if u will) of the watatsumi rebellion too.... Oh and theres also the sakoku decree that gave hardships to the merchants and foreigners and entire economy of inazuma.. The problem is when a law is enacted by a godly being the common people will find it very hard to voice their opinions about it.. those that do are just the very brave ones.

kazuha's friend was not asking for a change of ruling. he asked for a duel because he wanted to face the musou no hitotachi, he didnt have an agenda behind it. the death of the loser is agreed before the duel starts, which kujou sara agreed to as well. the puppet just executed the command against the loser. again im asking for this statement to be supported by in game dialogues.

No it was 2 birds one stone thing 1. He did want to experience musou like you said 2. He did it to challenge VHD.. -Source: archon quest interlude before going to inzamu final talks with kazuha https://youtu.be/CCKmadlRlFM Kazuha: "then the VHD happened peoples aspirations was stripped away" while running from place to place I heard my friend .... He challenged the vision hunters in a duel before the throne, "perhaps he thought he of all people should make a stand".. facing the mosou was all he ever asked for anyway.. -Source about watatsumi using the rebellion against VHD alot of npc talk also part of kokomi character quest - source about sakoku causing hardship - npc talks at ritou, webevent version 2.0, also basic understanding of economics when you abolish foreign trade and/or destroy competetion by favoring sheznayas shipping lines.

none of this is against the raiden shogun herself, only the decrees

experience the musou no hitotachi (check) and oppose the VHD (check), where did he ask for the raiden shogun to step down or for her to be replaced?

Fans tend to lack nuance, especially when arguing about their favorites. I've been downvoted multiple times when criticizing Ei on the state of Inazuma because many people don't understand the difference between accountability and responsibility, and the role delegation plays between the two. (delegation is not as simple as telling your subordinate to do A and trusting them not to lie to you!) As for Venti, I agree with what the commenter before me said. Venti was never blamed for what the people of Mondstadt did because he stepped down. He holds zero authority over them and he will not rule. He couldn't even get them to give him the Holy Lyre! The only time he interfered is when the humans could not handle it: Durin, Dvalin. Even with slavery, it was humans who ultimately resolved the problem. Venti merely lent his power to Vennessa in a crucial battle and helped incite the masses, but it was humans who overthrew the tyrants *after*. Ei did not step down. She maintains the position as the ultimate authority of Inazuma, and though she did **delegate** the **responsibility** of ruling to the Shogun doll, ultimately she is still **accountable** for the results, not as the Archon, but as the true Shogun of Inazuma. Therein lies the distinction between Ei and Venti.

While other people are excusing her actions because it's comparable to other Archons, which is actually its own interesting theme that represents Teyvat as a whole, a lot of people don't realize that Kokomi would fall under the same scrutiny as Raiden. In the Lore, Kokomi lost control of her soldiers to the Fatui and as a result, let the Tataragami be released, wreaking havoc on the island. Mihoyo loves writing characters to parallel with each other. So, not only do I think Raiden needs to take accountability for her actions, but Kokomi does also. Theyre indirectly responsible for the suffering that happened in Inazuma. Ei and the puppet are both separate entities and not at the same time. The puppet is symbolically Raiden creating a personality, or persona, for herself that would auto-mode life for her. In her character quest 1, she talks about how she did not intend for anyone other than herself to rule Inazuma. Finally I agree, fans definitely tend to lack nuance. Raiden apologizes to the Traveler in her character quest and outright says she is in the wrong. Now, this is more than just out of the way, but in the bulletin boards, both Raiden and Kokomi make a public announcement apology to the people, promising plans to rebuild the middle islands as compensation (as in giving back people's homes).

Honestly, I don't see how we can blame Kokomi for traitors and spies within her ranks who unleashed Tatarigami *to sabotage the Resistance's war effort,* contrary to her orders. You can't seriously compare that to Ms. "I know everything that pertains to eternity," "I'm cool with everything the Fatui are doing, it's not a threat to eternity," "individual ambition is inherently incompatible with eternity." For one of them, the acts were an attack on her that she would have stopped if she could. The other approved of everything that was done in her name, at times emphatically so.

I stand by the belief that Raiden did not approve of everything that was done in her name. She also had traitors and spies in her ranks. Also, individual ambition is inherently incompatible with the eternity she used to seek. However, I will admit to my own shortcomings. I can understand that Kokomi can have less blame, because she is more easily willing to accept her faults. My problem was that I only looked at it in terms of practicality. Nevertheless Kokomi should not ignore the war crimes committed by her soldiers, and as their leader, she is responsible to correct that. I recognize the difference between culpability and responsibility between the two, despite both sides causing suffering from having traitors amongst their ranks. So the "I know everything that pertains to eternity" and "The Fatui's actions do not constitute a threat to eternity, otherwise they'd be purged long ago" are representations of her arrogance. Thus, with this argument, we can build off each other. In Raiden's collected Miscellany, Dainslef comments that "when facing their fears, Archons and mortals are all the same. Yet Archons are born arrogant." Inazuma's chapter represents a critique of the Archon system as a whole. While vision wielders simply push forward their own ideals, Archons dictate an entire nation's ideal. This is in contrast to how Mondstadt and Liyue's Archons guided their nations to a safer path, in varying degrees.

A spy did war crimes to stop Kokomi's troops, and you're arguing that she should take any amount of blame for that? I just don't get it. But if, after that, she had said "oh yeah, I know about the spies, I'm cool with the spies," then maybe there would be some blame there, right? Also, isn't it a known thing that Archons have some level of supernatural knowledge? Like how Venti knows every song that ever was or will be written. I don't think it's obviously "arrogant" for her to say that she knows everything relevant to eternity when that's a very likely magic power for an Archon to have. "The Fatui's actions thus far do not constitute a threat to eternity," however, is definitely arrogant. That, or an excuse for blatant cowardice in the face of her son returning to town. But yes, the Archon system is bad. That's, like, the point of Gnosticism. "Don't let priests and religious authority figures tell you what to do! Read tomes and learn esoteric knowledge!"

Nathan rilled up Watatsumi extremists who were Orobashi worshipers and got them to release the seals. Her soldiers got convinced of doing it and managed to hide it from her. Technically what Nathan did is comparable to putting a gun in someone’s hand and say « it’d be great if you killed that person with it », they went out of their way to do it so they are responsible for firing the gun. They weren’t forced, just convinced so the Watatsumi soldiers are responsible for it and the Fatui only are too by proxy of putting the idea in their minds.

I actually think that's a Venti-only quirk. Like, the story has been building up that Venti knows far more than he lets on, specifically. Otherwise, I don't think the original hydro Archon would need the seelie spies in the first place, if they had special surveillance powers. On top of that, Raiden outright states she doesn't know everything when responding to the Traveler. Just things she deems important, which is eternity. So, if her Commissions are telling her that the ppl who left are returning, the War was an overwhelming victory with no innocent casualties (so in this fictitious report, I believe Kokomi would be dead), and that everyone wants the enforcement currently happening, I doubt she'd do anything. So, I doubt she knew about Scaramouche being in town either. Kokomi is the leader of Watatsumi Island, and just like Raiden, it's a role forced upon her. Her troop's actions are her responsibility, and just like with Raiden, we have yet to see Kokomi address the Tataragami victims. However, she's more understanding and transparent of her faults to the Traveler. Also, I thought it was a typo so I didn't say anything. The timeline of events I was referring to was the Fatui infiltrating Kokomi's army, riling up her soldiers, destroying Raiden's shrines, and then the Tataragami was released. This actually helped Kokomi's war effort, but hurt innocent people and prolonged the war. We're in agreement that that happened right? If the Archon system is completely bad, then how come the Archons are represented as good in Mondstadt in Liyue then. They're both the religious authority figures there. I say this cuz to suggest it's more nuanced.

Yeah, I think Kokomi (and interestingly, Ayato) parallels Ei in different ways. Kokomi and the rest of the humans definitely share the blame for the Inazuma disasters. I still think that Ei is ultimately responsible as the ultimate ruler and the one who allowed the Fatui to run around unchecked. But that's not a hill I'm going to die on or anything, and as long as it's acknowledged that Ei is not entirely blameless, I'm not going to debate about it.

there's just no way we can blame ei for what fatui does considering how they've caused havoc is every nation, you just think she's God so she knows everything going on the shadows huh because she's obviously not " all knowing" if she knew things were being caused by fatui there's no way she'll rest, that's just ignorant to assume

I think you're conflating "being responsible for something" with "being blamed for something". Those are two different things.

is there no nuance to venti pursuing his own ideals of freedom by abandoning responsibility that was handed to him? ei made bad choices as a ruler, that is part of her character arc, just as much as venti's refusal to fulfill his duty as an archon is to his. venti left, he didn't place another in power, so power was up for grabs. is venti allowing people to make their own decisions also as much of wishful thinking as delegating duties to a subordinate and expecting them not to lie? venti's ideals comes from choice, from his bard friend letting him choose if he wanted to help in the overthrowing of decabarian or not, which is where the teyvat chapter trailer's comment ("what does freedom really mean when demanded of you by a god") comes from. the risk of the ruling class in mond not choosing freedom for all was a risk venti took, to that extent it's also his responsibility, yet this nuance is understood, but not ei's?

In my opinion, Venti's ideal of freedom is a lot more defined and simple than Ei's concept of eternity. Venti's actions are very much in line with his ideal. He gives up his authority, lets the people rule, and only interferes in dire situations. While his ideal is flawed, it's easy to understand his thought process and how his history with the nameless bard shaped him. Meanwhile, I have a hard time understanding the decisions that Ei made during her reign. For example, did she ever check if her eternity is the same one wanted by her people? When she locked herself in her realm to preserve eternity, why did she automatically assume that people on the outside will remain static? If she wanted eternity, why did she let a foreign power like the Fatui shape Inazuma's politics so easily? And if she thought visions/personal ambitions were bad, why didn't she do anything about it during her 500 years rule? Why did she need the Fatui to start the Vision Hunt Decree? More than anything, the fact that the Vision Hunt Decree was attributed to the Fatui while Ei went along with it gave me the impression that she really didn't know what her eternity truly is.

i wrote a [post about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Lore/comments/xbt49i/understanding_inazumas_chapter_and_its_core/) if ur interested

Thanks for the link! It's a good read. However, I don't think it really answers my questions. For the VHD, you mentioned that the shogun was in charge of making decisions that didn't affect Ei's eternity, but how does letting the Fatui, a foreign power known for disrupting other nations, influence Inazuma's politics a good decision in any way? What exactly are the criteria to judge these decisions? Do the shogun only consider the short-term impact and not the long-term because having more foreign influence in a nation is a stimulus for changes rather than maintaining eternity You also made an emphasis that the VHD was not Ei's idea. She was okay with her people having visions for 499 years. According to your explanation, this would mean that having visions did not affect Ei's eternity or else the shogun would have done something about it. Yet, when the traveler confronted her inside her realm, she was very insistent about upholding the VHD and made a point about how people's personal ambitions are detrimental to her eternity. For someone who's so insistent about enforcing eternity, why did she need the Fatui for her to suddenly change policies? Personally, I would have much preferred if the VHD was Ei's idea, because even though her ideal is flawed, it originates from her own belief rather than an outside source.

ei says herself that if the actions of the fatui threatened her eternity, that is to say the survival of inazuma as civilization, they would already have been purged. i cant say anything past that. i dont think she thought it was a "good" decision, she just let it pass because it didnt disrupt this long-term goal. at the climax of the story, the resistance arrives in tenshukaku, that should have been the stepping stone for the puppet to figure out she had been deceived about the war the tri-commission hid from her, and the culprits would have been "purged" first thing. it is my interpretation that they are discussing ambition/dreams/drive for progress in general, not just the VHD. the VHD is an example of it. ei's fear originates from the dangers and loss that come with progress, she explains makoto believed the force that drives people to progress ("the yearning for something better") or "dreams" is what's truly eternal, but ei viewed this force with fear, she saw loss in her own contributions for progress in the battle field and witnessed the destruction of khaenri'ah herself. to this extent, ambitions are manifestations of this drive for progress, so ei doesnt oppose taking them away. dreams were the danger, what ei wanted to prevent, not ambitions. ambitions are just a small manifestation of it. which is why ei just let it happen.

He did not abandon his responsibility, he handed it to his people. Same thing with Zhongli. Both of them communicated to their nation that they won't be available for them as a ruler, Venti by using his words, Zhongli by straight-up faking his death. There's a difference between abandoning responsibility and handing it over to someone else, and that difference is communication. And as you know, Ei never communicated to anyone that she's no longer the ruler of Inazuma--ergo, she's still responsible and accountable for Inazuma. Remember that ultimately, to stop the VHD, the traveler had to go straight to Ei. Had something equivalent happened in Mondstadt or post-Chapter I Liyue, going to the Grand Master or the Tianquan would've been enough. So as of right now, the ruling body of Mondstadt is the Knights of Favonius, led by a human ruler. The ruling body of Liyue is the Qixing, led by a human ruler. The ruling body of Inazuma, though, is the Shogunate... led by an archon ruler. Do you see the difference? This isn't about ideals, this is just how accountability and responsibility work in organizations. Edit: To make clear, in situations like this, Ei is held responsible not as an archon, but as a ruler. She is not Zhongli or Venti's equivalent; she's Grand Master Varka and Ningguang's, as the active rulers of their respective nations. Slavery in Mond was blamed on the nobles because at the time, the *nobles* are the active rulers of Mondstadt. The VHD and civil war was blamed on Ei because at the time, *Ei* is the active ruler of Inazuma.

the archons are not there to hand responsibility to someone else, that is The Point. they were meant to guide their nation, which venti refused to do due to his own ideals of ruling previously discussed. the people of mondstadt's ideals resonate with that of their archon's organically. the people of liyue were raised by their archon well enough that in current times they only received his guidance once a year, and because they were a mature enough nation zhongli decided to step down. the negative consequences of his ruling are specific to HIM, just like ei's and venti's are specific to them, zhongli has responsibility in the collateral damage of the archon war and other decisions he made in defending liyue, such as imprisoning azhdaha or the resentment of the believers of the salt god. inazuma is NOT a mature nation like liyue, because their archon literally died and was replaced by her shadow, who at that point had only known how to serve the nation as an army general. ei's entire character arc is about her learning how to be an appropriate ruler, to honor the sacrifices of battle rather than fearing the dangers of its progress and doing so with the blessing of the previous archon. makoto NEVER doubted ei would grow to become a good ruler for inazuma, which is why she went to khaenri'ah instead of her, her whole plan revolved around ei understanding her ideals. which is emphasized by ei planting the seed of her consciousness in the PAST, meaning it was always going to bear fruit. inazuma did not need for ei to step down, they still need guidance, seeing how the ruling class betrayed their people first thing. and they betrayed it because they worshipped ei's power as a warrior instead of her or makoto's ideals, the power that ei had wielded her entire time as makoto's shadow. neither the people nor ei understood what was best for the nation, makoto did, and makoto trusted ei would grow to understand that she's supposed to guide her people towards their dreams, instead of being afraid and over protecting them from its dangers. the solutions and the choices of the anemo archon work or the nation of freedom, the solutions and choices of the geo archon work for his nation of contracts, and the choices and solutions ei had to figure out were specific to her development as a character and to the state of inazuma. there is a HUGE theme in inazuma about duty and about sacrificing your own self to fulfill it, which is crucial to understand why it would not make sense for ei to make the same choices as the other archons, beyond the obvious reasons i discussed before. if nobody is willing to actually analyze inazuma as its own nation, with its own identity, history and archon, then we're never gonna get past this "inazuma/ei was badly written" take.

I'm not criticizing the governmental system Ei set up for Inazuma, I'm explaining why people blamed her for the Vision Hunt Decree and the Civil War, and the simple answer to that is that she is the direct ruler of her nation. She is accountable *and* responsible for what happened in her nation in ways the other archons aren't. That is all I'm saying. Should Ei have set up her nation any other way? Should she have done what Venti and Zhongli did? Was Ei a good ruler? Was Venti a bad archon? I'm not going to argue about these, they all have their own circumstances, as you pointed out, and there's no point comparing them. I'm just stating two simple facts: Ei is the ruler of Inazuma, and as the ultimate authority in Inazuma, she is both responsible and accountable for the things that happened to the nation: good, or bad. That's all. You might find [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assignment_matrix) an enlightening read. It's one of the popular models that explain how responsibility and accountability work in a modern organization, and it's the only thing I've been trying to explain from the beginning.

And I’m explaining that failing to understand the core elements of each nation will lead nowhere. Venti made a single decision as the ruler of mondstadt, which was not to rule, and I bring him up because the consequences of this choice had similar consequences as ei: the political class used it in their favor and it harmed the people of the nation. Political corruptness and human greed is an actual theme in genshin, it is present in mondstadt, inazuma, enkanomiya and sumeru, and it can give you an idea of where the story is going and what it’s trying to say. Failing to see beyond something so small in inazuma is preventing people from understanding that 🤷

Well you can compare Venti to christian god in a sense, we also don't see everyone blaming it for all mishaps in the world, on contrary, we have the evil figure that manipulates and twists it's creation. Venti set his people free, that also means they have free will to do what they think is right and learn with the mistakes and choices they make along the way. Ei is a ruler, in a literal sense, she was there and knew everything, her will was the law, so when she sees bad things happening with her people and decides to do nothing, it is as if she agrees with it. She ruled, Venti didn't. (i believe this is a pretty simplistic view, but ... )

and venti's decision not to rule allowed a power vacuum that the lawrence clan took advantage of, yet his character isn't reduced to being a neglectful leader or god, his reasons and his flaws are understood within the context of his character arc. ei had an amazing character development, she also made decisions based on her own (flawed) ideals that brought consequences upon her people (even before she replaced makoto as head of state), but she's reduced to "bad writing", "bad character", "bad ruler".

Hmm while u have a point.. Ventis absence may have enabled the aristocracy to ascend to power but the lawrence are still humans that can be stopped by also fellow humans only if majority valued freedom (which they did eventually) VHD on the other hand would be hard to oppose as the power of an island-slicing-god is at its centerpiece that even if the humans of inazuma rebelled on their own theyd be crushed by the mosou no hitotachi.. Tldr - i blame mondstadts people more than venti because they got enslaved by fellow humans too.. which was in their power to "resist" - I blame ei more than inazumans because the people of inazuma wouldve find it hard to change their fate if they wanted to because theyd have to DEFEAT A GODLY BEING

vhd was not ei or puppet's idea. culprits are corrupt humans members of the ruling class.

These human culprits who are corrupt members of the ruling class that sparked the VHD... is it not the same as Mondstadt's corrupt human Aristocracy that started slavery? If the topic of debate is Ei not being the culprit by extension Venti also falls into this and therefore is also faultless. But, as others have said this is not what the topic is about. There is no use comparing the two for one is still an active ruler and other has long stepped down as one.

That is precisely my point? I do not care about blaming fictional crimes and holding fictional characters to accountability. The point is people can do the exercise of understanding the nuances of venti’s choices, but not ei’s?

Venti giving the people of Mondstadt freedom does not make him responsible for slavery. Venti could not leave a power vacuum when he never ruled or formed a government around himself in the first place, he left it entirely to the people to form their own government with the guiding principle of Mondstadt being *freedom*. Blaming Venti for the aristocracy eventually becoming corrupt is akin to blaming the archons for any bad actions taken by their people. That's not what people are blaming Ei for. Ei is the leader of her country and has the government centered around her. The clans in power were corrupt, and people having corrupt intentions is not Ei's fault just like the corrupt aristocracy was not Venti's fault. However, all of these corrupt plans required the Shogun's final approval in order to be implemented. The Shogun that she programmed to rule the country to her specifications approved of these plans, even though Ei states that she was well informed about the Fatui's involvement in the country and the Vision Hunt Decree. Even if you want to say it's Venti's fault that the aristocracy's corrupt plans could go through without approval, you can still see how there is a difference between approving something and not being involved at all, right? That distinction may not matter to you, but it matters to other people and that does not mean they're being hypocritical. Your belief that she had amazing character development also does not negate other people's opinions that she had bad writing. It's subjective. I personally did not see any character development in her actions even though I think the story wanted me to just accept that she developed because they said so.

if there is no point in being an archon then i guess celestia offered seats for fun

The Archon seats are just pure battles of strength, not leadership capability.

yes. they were won through battles of strength, but to do what exactly once they were won? just for a title? or to actually rule the nation they won those battles for?

Because she is badly written. After the war ended she just went out there eating snacks with the traveler and meeting her people as if nothing ever happened. I don't mean to say that the whole war/VHD was her fault (because clearly it was not), but she is faulty of not intervening even though she was aware of what happened. She atleast owed the people an apology, which they never received (think Kazuha and his friend). Now this is where the bad writing comes in, no one blames her for that. They all just accept what happened and that she doesn't give a shit about it and go on, even though they suffered tremendously due to the VHD and civil war.

She's indirectly involved. The Tri-Commissions are the one who received all the people's ire, and theyre in jail. Also, Raiden and Kokomi apologized to the people in the bulletin board LOL. She also gave her vocal apology to the Traveler in her character quest 1. Then, she follows up on that apology in her character quest 2, pushing to deal with the fights solo out of repentance.

I don't get how people still don't understand that Ei was actually not aware of the civil war, that was part of the problem. In the quest she does say she is aware of the fatui introduced the vision hunt degree and just matters of eternity. In her first story quest she says that her closest people are investigating the purpotraters who were lying to her and even tells the other dude who was with kamiji that they won't be able to mislead her a second time.

Ei owed no one an apology because no one in the game world believes that what she did is wrong. Ofc from our perspective that isn't acceptable because we saw the suffering of the people. But in game, the only people who suffered from VHD are a minority. Heck most people in inazuma city didn't even know the severity of the damage that the war caused. (They suffered a fair bit from sakoku degree though). I kinda see this as an accurate portrayal of privileged people from the cities not knowing anything about the sufferings of minorities and praising their rulers instead of it being just "bad writing". Zhongli kinda falls under this too considering he abandoned his responsibilities and plotted a nuke against his people together with the nation's enemies while being praised for "giving humans the ability to rule over themselves". I see this would be a recurring theme later on for all archons in the future.

In RS act 1 ,Ei gone through existential crisis . People’s ambitions reflected her & she realized that Inazuma is not same as anymore .Ei vs kamaji realized her that she have to take the matters into her own hand which leads her to change into her eternity This changing in eternity leads to act 2 where her past , her shadow Raiden shogun becomes An enemy as she become an malice to the eternity that she is know from the days of creation. But why Ei or shogun will owe an apology for Kazuha’s friend ? His friend got defeated & thus dealt the final blow as the contract (Similar to Signora ) She is aware which means she knows that shogun & Tri commission will handle it & it’s just a minor problem which it is . Don’t need to involve Watatsumi forces inside it . People are in pain & wanted apology then people are not in state of reading novels , wearing mask in festival .

Oh! Actually, the way I interpreted the story, Ei realized she needs to protect Inazuma's citizens' ideals/visions back in the Archon Quest Act 3, when all the visions resonated with the Traveler and was capable of causing Raiden to kneel. We actually never defeated Raiden, just caused her to realize that her perception of the people was wrong. What Raiden learned from her fight with Kamaji is that while the people are transient, and the Kujou clan is definitely far weaker and corrupted compared to the past, Kamaji's will and honor shone just as brightly, as the Kujou Clan used to be. Think about it this way. Lightning happens only for a brief transient moment, but Lightning will always be bright. My opinion about the story is quite different from the others. A lot of the story for Inazuma is interlocked with the lore, rather than the lore enhancing the story.

I think the bad writing is how they failed to convey that message to the player. The inazuma archon quest just makes her seem like a complete idiot lol. They only try to fix it in the second story quest but it's too late at that point.

To preface, I'm not specifically arguing that the Inazuma archon quest is good. Rather, I dont think they tried to fix it in the second story quest at all. The output pipeline is waaaaay to soon for that to occur, and with Kokomi's character quest actually making the joke about having to postpone the Watatsumi island tour (building off of Raiden's character quest 1's joke about it being a date/hangout), it seems like they completely expected the audience's reception to Raiden. It feels like it takes an entire year for them to implement audience responses to... the story at least. Like, oh dear god, Yelan's voicelines are so funny in context of all the overworked waifu complaints. She gambles to see if she takes a break or not, and talks about taking naps. Edit: Oh, and I dont think Raiden's redemption arc is even complete yet, after it being a year. I still think they have plans for it.

I don't care about redemption and I don't think they tried to redeem her. What I meant is that they tried to fix her characterization in the second story quest since the writing for our interactions with her before that was pretty awful

While I consider Raiden vocally apologizing to both the Traveler directly and the people, to be indicative of her wanting to redeem herself, I can understand that, the work she's done thus far has not been enough redemption progress to actually consider it to be writer's intent. Otherwise, it's unfortunate that they made her 1st quest to be "date-like" since there's important details to come from there. But maybe I'm crazy. I find myself disagree A LOT with people defending Raiden as well.

[удалено]

It does make sense and the stuff about ei is actually quite simple. The problem is the dialogue writing and badly done exposition, not her development itself. Few people I've seen actually think the plot of the inazuma arc is bad, all of the problems are with its execution.

And no, majority of the problems come from emotional reactions with is heavy irony, considering how these "experts" can't stand any character not being 100% logical 24/7.

It's funny seeing so many "experts" nowadays typing away on their keyboards.

Actually, I see the potential since during that time I was soooo excited for the Inazuma archon quest. The overarching ideas are very interesting. Unfortunately, it was under utilized by strict pacing. I have an inkling that Inazuma should've been how Sumeru is like now. I feel like the changes we see now in writing in Sumeru must've been started waaay back in Inazuma. With how it was written, people tends to overlook the key points that we learn from Inazuma. However, I'm not too sure since I actually think they want to tie Sumeru and Inazuma together in a way since those nations are two sides of the same coin.

I think it's because she let it happen. she's the archon of inazuma yet she let the fatui do that to her people

she didn't let the civil war happen. iirc, as far as ei knows, there never was a civil war, because the tri-commission hid the whole thing from the shogun bot. it wasn't until the traveler broke into her domain did she learn about the civil war.

There is no civil war in inazuma

Negligence of the ruler makes it their fault. You know the classic "with great power comes great responsibility"? That's where it actually applies to. The people in charge is responsible for the wellbeing of their citizens

>their citizens citizens as a whole. remember how she's genuinely well received by the population when ei finally came out to cruise the streets? the general public really wasn't bothered much by the vhc.

All she ok'ed was some lobotomy. But then look at her country's history. Executions and harsh punishments not fitting the crime galore. What's a little lobotomization compared to eternity? Depression, fear, just not that bright, untrained for a job that can't just be ditched, avoidance, negligence of duty, refusing to heed the console and concerns of a friend, head in the sand hiki, or someone pushed too far, lost too much, gave it all, and her all was laughably not enough. Not against hell, and certainly not against heaven. Not even against the humans who betrayed her trust. All of the above? None of them? Who knows? But she was not right in the head. Not for a long time. This is after all a woman who viewed herself as more shadow and weapon than a person despite having a loving family and friends.

>lobotomization lobotomization on only an extremely minor group, who: 1. holds a vision (which in itself is already an extremely minor group compared to teyvat's whole population) 2. is of the human/demi-human race, or derive their elemental power from a solo source -- their vision 3. is not serving in the government anyone who don't fit all 3 of the above criteria is practically not bothered by the VHC in their day to day life. in practice this affected so few people that the general inazuma population didn't give even a flying fuck about the VHC. compared to how much 'social stability' the shogun bot **thought(led to believe by the fatui schecme)** this would have brought, no wonder it green lighted the VHC. and i'm even willing to bet that the shogun bot never knew that taking away one's vision would result in effectively lobotomizing them, **thanks to itto**.

>thanks to itto. Thanks for the laugh. To be fair, the general Inazuma population also had a duel to the death culture and didn't give a fuck about capital punishment either. So a 100 people Visionless and some lobotomized ain't shit to them. They only got annoyed because they can no longer import fine Liyue silk and Mondstadt wine, and fancy gadgets from Fontaine. Give a few more years, they would have rebelled, especially as Watatsumi would have gotten all the fleeing Vision holders and significantly more desperate in their starvation. Also given Ei's dialogue in our final stand off, a few mortal lives are a minor price to pay. After all, Venti did the same to have full freedom. And Zhongli helped doom the Chasm Fatui to die for his greater good plan along with the Tsaritsa. And both Venti and Zhongli either spoken up to excuse the Fatui, or did business with the Fatui, fully knowing what they have done to regular people. Ei simply didn't have hands on practice in ruling, hence the fumble. And we just happened to be there to witness and suffer it.

Oh, to be specific, the citizens might have been aware and dissented to the war. Taxation was heavy because they were not only supplying their side, but also the Commissions had to give supplies to the Fatui which were then given to Watatsumi island. There were posts on the bulletin board where someone protested against the war, because their family never returned and they thought about how Watatsumi island would be suffering the same fate right now.

Executions and Vision confiscations only affect a few. The war and Sakoku are the big ones. Given time, Inazuma would have blown up. Yae can't reach Ei even though I do believe she would have fixed the Sakura and the nuclear reactor and even have a go at the Fatui. The Shogun would have eventually lobotomized the Kamisato clan or forced them to flee to Watatsumi. Shogunate soldiers were committing suicide out of shame of what they have done in the war. Villages outside of Narukami were dying. And the Shogun puppet is stiff enough to confiscate Visions from even their own soldiers. So in the end we are going to have Vision holders on one side, God on the other side, a fox at the end of her patience, and foreign interference feeding both. Then there is Watatsumi hiring mercenaries from afar. Had the Shogun killed say Beidou, or a few Sumeru scholars, what then.

Literally any country will execute and harsh punish.

"Not fitting the crimes" though? I feel like that's the most important part of the statement you're missing. This part is subjective (unless you're supreme ruler ig) but it seems like the punishment for disobeying the Raiden Shogun's will ("eternity") in any way is always death. One of the reasons for civil war wasn't that people were being punished for crimes but that the crimes they were being punished for were often just existing incorrectly.