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moontheoretist · 2 days ago

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Becautiful, absolutely stunning. 1000/10 I have seriously nothing more to add, because everything was already said better than I could.

Well maybe one addition xD

"I don't think he hates being their crown prince at all. I think he would never give up the position unless he was 110% confident that his people were ready to lead themselves or that someone else could truly and completely rule them better than he could."

I read this sentence and immediately thought about the trial of Strife when Mydei offloads the trial onto Phainon because he fears he will succumb to the madness just like Nikador, but at the same time due to th coreflame of Strife being inherently related to rulership of the Kremnos, he in metaphorical way also offloads the duty of King onto Phainon. Only for Phainon to fail and Mydei having to confront the idea of kingship once more and rejecting it alltogether (which I was hoping he will do the entire patch, people trying to make him king against his wishes was seriously so annoying). Hence why it's so sad that after that he is forced to literally go to war and be a sun devoured by the darkness and separated from everyone. Lonely gazing in the direction of Okhema where he actually wants to be - with his friends.

Mydei: Legend, Reality, Agency

A while back on Twitter, I saw an excellent thread going around about how so many in-game sources of information on Mydei tell his story as if recounting an ancient myth, an unreal epic tale of a fictional hero, rather than a "real," existing being. (Thank you to @ruby019x for finding the link to the thread!)

Reiterating the point of that original Twitter thread: Unlike the other Chrysos Heirs, whose stories get treated as contemporary "real" events or whose tales are told through their own perspectives, almost everything we know about Mydei is framed through the filter of third party observers, resulting in a character that feels less like a person than a myth made flesh. Mydei's story doesn't come across as the coherent timeline of someone telling us true events--it feels like a jumbled, highly exaggerated account that might spread as rumors through word-of-mouth, or, more accurately:

It feels like storytelling.

The way Mydei's backstory and all of the sources of information we have on Mydei in-game unfurl in contradictory and overwrought manners has the ring of a legend passed down through generations, losing and gaining details over time, being misremembered, aggrandized, and taken out of context, until the heroic figure at the core of the story no longer has a human identity but has transcended to become a mythological figure, real history fading into romanticized narrative.

Mydei isn't a living, breathing "person," he's the untouchable "king of kings," the "greatest conqueror, the mightiest protector."

Overall, this storytelling effect is very apparent, in virtually every source of information we have about Mydei throughout the game:

Mydei's character stories are all third party accounts of his actions and past:

Phrases such as "legends state," "rumors swirl," "the author boldly speculates" etc. abound in Mydei's character stories, making it clear that all of the information contained in them is suspect at best--these are others' perceptions of him and the events of his life, not his own perspectives on what occurred.

Unlike virtually every other character in the game, instead of Mydei's character stories being a chance for players to get to understand Mydei's inner world, to see him from his own perspective, we're given this strange distance, these observations from "outsiders" who clearly fail to grasp who Mydeimos is as a person or real his motivations. In one character story, Mydei's own advisors struggle with their complete lack of understanding, questioning his decisions and rewriting his actions as being "bewitched" by Aglaea and the Flame-Chase Journey, instead of genuinely committed to the cause:

There's even confusion and speculation among fans about who wrote the handwritten notes at the end of each of Mydei's character stories. Are these Mydei's notes, answering the accusations, setting the records straight, and adding his own personal perspectives at last?

While I'm still somewhat inclined to say these are Mydei's notes, the fact that these notes are supposedly from books "in the archive of the Library of Garbaniphoro"--a library this lifetime's Mydei shouldn't actually have had any access to--definitely complicates that reading, not to mention that Mydei doesn't seem to demonstrate the level of self-interest that would drive him to look up and read a bunch of books about himself in the first place...

The fact that we fans can't even fully tell whether these notes were actually written by Mydei or by someone else--such as Khaslana, seeking accounts and histories of the person he cared for, trying to set the record straight even in timelines where his blade would eventually spell the end of Mydei's life--is just another hallmark of the confusion surrounding Mydei's life. In practically every moment, we're still not sure if Mydei is speaking for himself or not.

Mydei's chapters in "As I've Written" continue this exact same trend, giving accounts of his life through third party observations, rumors, and questions:

"They say," "others guessed," "rumors rife," a "wild tale," and literally "the protagonist"--this isn't a first person account of Mydei's backstory, his own thoughts on his situation, or his true life's timeline. It's a dramatized retelling of events through the lens of outsiders looking in, turning a "person" into a "protagonist," making him a fictional character in his own life (this is very meta, by the way).

The mission and journal text throughout Amphoreus's plot, even all the way from 3.1, also echo this, with second person point of view instead of first person, emphasizing Mydei's title as if that were more important than his personhood, and dictating his feelings as if they're "absurd," not earned or valid, while mission text in 3.4 paints Mydei as a completely overblown figure, a larger-than-life myth:

Even NPCs, particularly the Kremnoans, often speak of Mydei in this way, as if he was not a person but a figurehead, a symbol they are rallying behind, rather than a human being with challenges, hesitations, and thoughts of his own:

The end result of all of this together is that Mydei comes across much more like a fictitious character than nearly any of the other Chrysos Heirs. Is he a lingering hero of the Chrysos War one thousand years in the past? Is he the re-embodiment of the spirit of Kremnos itself, son of both "Queen Gorgo" and "Gorgo, the Founder of Kremnos," as the game so likes to conflate? Is he a conquering tyrant, the king of kings, an embodiment of the sea, the Guardian of Amphoreus, the beloved crown prince of his country or the patricidal traitor?

Even in the meta sense, we players struggle to separate fact from fiction, leading to the sensation that all along, Mydei's single "story" has actually been multiple stories, at least two different timelines interweaving into a jumbled, incoherent past full of made-up events that couldn't have occurred, contradictions, and out-of-context plot points coloring even the player's perceptions of Mydei and his past.

And all of this, I think, is very intentional.

If you were to ask me "What's is Mydei's real role in Amphoreus's story?" I think the best answer to that question is: Mydei's role in the story is a commentary on the nature of storytelling itself.

The theme of storytelling is essential to Amphoreus's plot, with the "As I've Written" text being treated as the core model for each character's memory-identity that the Trailblazer is inscribing and bringing with them into the past (and therefore also the future) of Amphoreus. The idea of storytelling and narrative is so central to Amphoreus that the entire plot effectively revolves around it: The Flame-Chase Journey, and therefore the entire core reveal of Amphoreus being a simulation instead of a real world, is tied to Plato's allegory of the cave, itself a story about people who believe facsimile (their shadows cast by flame on the cave wall) is reality--in other words, a moral about mistaking narrative for truth.

It is only by rejecting the false reality--breaking free of Irontomb's simulation--that Amphoreus's people can become "real," escaping the digital unreality to enter the actual universe. In essence:

It is only by escaping "fiction" that one can embrace "true" existence.

But there's a second layer of the moral quandary: If the fiction is more beautiful, more entertaining, and more glorious than reality, would it be better to stay in the story, to turn your back on reality and just be the heroic protagonist of a fairy tale epic?

The game itself asks us to confront this idea:

"Do you care how true a memory is?"

Mydei is a walking, talking manifestation of this exact theme. Are we actually supposed to care how accurate his backstory is?

If Mydei is just meant to be a narrative symbol of kingship, of guardianship, of Strife, then does it really matter if things about his past do not add up?

If Mydei is a pure stand-in for the concept of "the mythological hero," do we really need his timeline to make sense?

Is an aggrandized, dramatized recounting of his past and deeds not perfectly in keeping with the way every mythological hero's past is told?

Consider our real world heroes of yore--Beowulf, Odysseus, Gilgamesh--do any of them feel "real"? Do we think of them as actual historical figures who lived and died like we do, or are they larger-than-life heroes whose actions are all so fictionalized and exaggerated that they never could have happened in real life? Do we understand our heroes as sentient, three-dimensional existences? Do we know their thoughts, their feelings, their struggles outside the narrow confines of their legends?

Or do they exist just to be morals, role models, symbols?

In fact, there is evidence suggesting that many mythological figures like Gilgamesh and Beowulf were real kings who actually lived in our real world--but we will never know the true stories of those men, because their truth has been entirely consumed by narrative.

Fiction eclipses fact.

We take the shadows on the wall to be "truth," and never see the real world beyond the cave.

Mydei's story is a microcosm for what is happening in Amphoreus's plot as a whole, a concentrated example of what occurs when memory becomes "blurry or gets idealized."

It's a pointed commentary on the nature of storytelling, because you never tell the exact same story twice. Over time, as you recall the tale, it changes, minute details being washed away in favor of remembered generalizations, hyperbole, and shifting interests. Every person who retells the story, every new perspective on the original material, brings their own agenda to the table, further altering the original until it barely resembles what really occurred.

As Trailblazer and Co. struggle with the question of how to make Amphoreus real from the memories we have gathered--and whether we want to recreate the world accurately or pen a different, much happier ending--we see that same struggle play out in miniature through Mydei, whose true life and true voice are being subsumed in before our very eyes by myth, by legend, by others turning him into a convenient symbol or source for their own speculation.

Through Mydei, we see the dangers of what can happen when memory becomes "beautified," capturing fiction rather than truth.

But more than its reflection on his overall role in the story, I think there's a fascinating side effect of choosing the concept of "storytelling" as Mydei's central theme: Writing him as a character whose real thoughts and feelings are eclipsed by other people's perspectives puts Mydei in a position normally occupied by female characters in media--the position of having to fight for agency.

(Before I go any further with this point, because the Star Rail fandom has literacy issues, let me doubly clarify: I am not talking about the experiences of actual real world women here [although they do often reflect fictional women's experiences]--I am talking strictly about the roles and struggles stereotypically assigned to female characters in media. If you can't keep that context in mind, stop reading here, because I don't want to deal with pancakes-and-waffles people who think saying "Media frames X as a feminine trait" is equivalent to saying "Real people can't be feminine if they don't experience X." PLEASE.)

Okay, with that out of the way, what I mean is this:

One of the most common experiences of female characters in media, especially in media written primarily by men, is being unable to speak for themselves. The stories of female characters are often told almost exclusively through the lens of their male protagonist counterparts, and female characters are often given less interiority. Even in cases where female characters are able to express their own individual thoughts and feelings, those thoughts and feelings are often dismissed in favor of others' interpretations. ("Oh, so you actually mean ____" or "You don't really feel that way.")

Because Mydei is a character whose role in the story is defined by his truth being eclipsed under mythology (his actual thoughts and feelings hidden behind the game sharing only the perspectives of outsiders), he also effectively becomes a character who does not speak for himself, willingly or not.

Obviously Mydei's character stories are perfect proof of this, locking us out of his own inner world by giving us almost entirely the views of others, one of whom even rejects the very notion that Mydei could be exactly who he is, saying "There's no way such a person could exist," no way this would be real behavior, no way Mydei could be an altruistic and kind person:

The "As I've Written" chapters double-down on this notion, stating multiple times that Mydei is "a man of few words" who rarely conveys his thoughts on any matter. He is repeatedly described as "going silent." Worse, even when he does convey his thoughts, others find his words to be "absurd" and abandon him:

Hell, even Mydei's marketing materials get in on this impression:

But this trend towards silence happens outside of Mydei's written materials too. Over and over again, the game puts Mydei into positions where other people tell him how he should be thinking or feeling. It isn't that other people are always wrong about Mydei's feelings, but that the game consistently frames Mydei's emotions through other characters, rarely letting him be the one to express himself.

It happens with Krateros numerous times, but most clearly in the memory fragment after Mydei kills his father, where Krateros literally tries to tell Mydei what he's supposed to be feeling and how he should react to what just happened:

It occurs with the Chrysos Heirs several times, such as Tribbie telling Mydei how he should feel after Phainon's failed trial (no, I'm not blaming Tribbie here; she didn't do this maliciously):

We even see this happen with Phainon, who ends up interpreting Mydei's feelings on Mydei's behalf:

There's actually a running joke throughout 3.0, 3.1, and Mydei's "As I've Written" about other people (read as: Phainon) acting as historian in Mydei's stead, to speak about his past on Mydei's behalf, instead of Mydei sharing his own perspective on Kremnos's culture:

In 3.1, we get to see a Mydei who struggles to articulate his own thoughts and find the "right' words, and a Mydei who is keenly aware of the many times his thoughts fall of deaf ears, when his words fail to move the people he truly needs to persuade:

And nowhere do I think this futility in speaking for himself is clearer than in Mydei's highly symbolic relationship with language itself. It's no accident that Mydei "rarely speaks his native tongue" and the Kremnoan dictionary is jokingly referred to as "blank":

Since Mydei is synonymous with Kremnos, we can say that the game's refusal to let him speak much Kremnoan--and the game's refusal to let the Kremnoan language speak for itself--is equivalent to Mydei's inability to express his "true" self on his own terms. The emptiness of the Kremnoan language, though played as a joke, also effectively mirrors Mydei's silence as a character. Just as Mydei does not embrace his native language, he's not comfortably able to express the things he wants to say as a whole.

But how are we actually supposed to interpret this silence?

Is Mydei being spoken over or is he just choosing not to speak? Is this solely a case of Mydei making the mature decision not to respond to others' provocations, not to lower himself to deny false accusations? Does he just want to keep all his feelings hidden deep down?

I think you could easily interpret Mydei's constant returns to silence, interpret the game's decision to have all of his story told through others, as an example of classic "manly" stoicism, a male character simply refusing to be vulnerable or speak his true thoughts or feelings out loud. Maybe we could argue that Mydei simply doesn't see the point in telling the truth about himself, because he knows people will invent their own stories anyway.

But... to be honest, I think the framing is a little different with Mydei. He's not actually that stoic or detached from his feelings. In fact, he's frequently rather candid about his emotions, significantly more so than Amphoreus's other primary male characters, Phainon and Anaxa. Although he rarely speaks his own inner thoughts, Mydei readily tells others (namely Phainon) to stop trying to hide their emotions, and in 3.1, he does actually try repeatedly to share his personal concerns, frustrated by the irony that his own language supposedly doesn't even have words for the things he's feeling.

While he is certainly reserved, Mydei does not seem to ascribe to the toxic idea that men should never express their feelings, and he doesn't aggressively hold his cards close to his chest. I don't get the impression that Mydei wants his life to be eclipsed by rumors and others' distorted, biased perspectives--I don't think he really wants to be silent.

In fact, in several moments across 3.0 and 3.1, Mydei tries quite hard to articulate his true wishes and thoughts... only for others to talk over and dismiss what he is saying.

We see this happen even all the way back when Mydei was a child, trying to express his dreams:

As a joke, this happens during 3.0 with Phainon, who "translates" Mydei's lofty way of speaking for the Trailblazer into different (inaccurate) words during their journey through Kremnos, even at one point going "Yeah, to be honest I have no idea what Mydei's trying to say either. Let's just move on."

We see it happen in 3.1 with Aglaea, who (for her own valid reasons) refuses to acknowledge Mydei's feelings about the coreflame of Strife, writing his reservations and fears off as "foolhardiness and indecision."

We see this happen even with Chartonus, who questions why someone like Mydei would be "terrified" of fulfilling his destiny, only for Mydei to struggle to explain the depths of his fear of losing himself to Strife.

"Why wouldn't I be terrified?" he says in 3.1, only for literally everyone to ignore him.

We see this happen with Krateros and the Kremnoan elders, who both explicitly scold Mydei for acting like a submissive (read as: stereotypical impression of femininity) prey animal instead of an dominant (read as: stereotypical impression of masculinity) predator.

I've written about this elsewhere, but this is the direct rhetoric that feeds into Mydei's "As I've Written" story based on the proverb "Until the lion has its own historian, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter." This proverb directly targets the duplicitous nature of storytelling, where one side of the story often gets told and the other is forgotten--clearly intertwined with Mydei's case, where the truth of his story goes untold in favor of the other side's perspective, where predator and prey are switched, and the lion becomes the victim, not the victor.

In fact, Mydei taking this supposedly "prey" role (serving another's cause, where his wishes are a distant second to the wishes of others), becomes one of Eurypon's foremost complaints when Mydei is confronted by his father's ghost: Mydei is the kind of person to quietly support others (a role stereotypically given to female characters), which flies directly in the face of Eurypon's near constant attempts to project himself and his own violent, "kingly" emotions onto Mydei.

So, all together: A character whose actual feelings are dismissed, downplayed as too emotional and not befitting his station, who finds his words falling on deaf ears, who is perpetually projected upon by the men in his life, and is constantly having his thoughts interpreted by others on his behalf instead of getting to be his own "voice"?

It's literally the quintessential fight of female characters across centuries of storytelling, and Hoyo deciding to assign this conflict to what initially appears to be one of their most stereotypically masculine figures in the entire game is fascinating, because it changes what is otherwise a cut-and-dry story of the prodigal son refusing to carry on his father's legacy into a significantly more complex, gendered reading: What if the son is not intuitively an aggressive, commanding man, but someone who struggles to articulate himself, who despite being able to carry the banner of leadership whenever he must, actually seeks the quiet, supportive role for himself when given the freedom to do so?

When people say that they were pleasantly surprised by Mydei's charcter because he wasn't the macho brute they were expecting him to be, I think what they are actually perceiving is this, the incredible dichotomy of taking the most classic masculine story of all time--son surpassing his father, prince becoming king--and assigning it to a character whose central emotional conflict is, historically, feminine. This is cool! This is really, really unique and cool!

But if all that isn't enough to convince you that Hoyo is doing crazy interesting (and surprisingly gender-nonconforming) things with Mydei's role in Amphoreus's story, then that's fine, because I haven't even actually gotten to the wildest part:

Setting aside entirely whether Mydei is able to speak for himself, the game deliberately and constantly goes out of its way to put Mydei into situations where he has no say in the things that are happening to him, once again assigning Mydei a conflict typically given to female characters across centuries of storytelling: the quest to gain agency.

Despite the game initially framing Mydei as powerful leader and strong decision-maker who could never be swayed by others, a warrior who would fight against fate with his very life on the line, drilling down into his story reveals a character who has effectively had no control over the course of his life at any given point in time, both in a conscious sense and in the meta sense of being a simulation in Irontomb's loops.

From the time of his birth, a prophecy dictated the entire course of Mydei's early life, setting his path in stone in a way that he seemingly couldn't have avoided even if he wanted to. He's thrown into the sea, left with no choice but to fight every day for survival--but even inside the sea, despite actively saving fishermen, Mydei never saves himself, simply staying in the ocean he supposedly despises until... what? He achieves a level of power sufficient to fulfill his future prophecy? 🤔 Later, Mydei will go on to describe his destined clash with his father as merely an "obligation to be carried out"--not something that ultimately made him happy or felt like a choice he was making of his own free will, but a moral duty to avenge his mother, done in the service of her honor.

Even serving as Kremnos's crown prince isn't actually portrayed as something Mydei was ever excited about, something he truly wanted for himself. In his memories, it's his closest friends and Krateros constantly urging him to take up the throne, and it's of course the Kremnoan people as a whole endlessly begging him to guide them in their pursuit of Strife and glory...

Outside of just his thoughts and words, the game constantly shows us scenes of Mydei being told, as the crown prince, how he should act, what he must do:

Essentially, Mydei escaped from the sea and in very short order was thrust into the role of stewardship with little (to no) chance to choose a fate separate from Kremnos. This happens despite the fact that Mydei is personally and repeatedly framed as "the least Kremnoan of them all," a boy who seemingly never grasped the faith of his fellow Strife worshippers. In his flashback with his mother, Mydei's very first question is "Why do we have to learn to fight at all?"--not something a "normal" crown prince of Kremnos would ever be asking.

Yes, yes, before you get up in arms: Of course Mydei loves the Kremnoans and has enormous pride for his people, don't get me wrong. I don't think he hates being their crown prince at all. I think he would never give up the position unless he was 110% confident that his people were ready to lead themselves or that someone else could truly and completely rule them better than he could. All I'm saying is that it's also abundantly clear that Mydei never actually had any say in whether he would become the Kremnoans' leader; that the role was something put onto him from the moment he was born, with fate once again dictating the course of his life.

Before going into the events that take place during the game's actual plot, I also think there's one other major aspect of Mydei's overall character that should be read as a denial of his agency, and that's Mydei's "curse of immortality." 3.2 tried to reframe Mydei's immortality in a weird way that frankly makes no sense (claiming that it was Mydei's choice all along, and that he was the one deciding not to die), but literally everywhere else in the game, it's made pretty clear that Mydei's immortality is indeed a curse, one that he can't be rid of unless he is stabbed in his tenth vertebra, and thus even the circumstances of the end of his life are largely outside his control. Phainon remarks on exactly this when Mydei describes losing all his friends, sympathizing with how Mydei was prevented even from joining his loved ones in death no matter how many times life was taken from him, no matter how many times he sacrificed himself on the altar. (This is why Khaslana's parting words to Mydei in the cycles are so meaningful, because Khaslana is actively choosing to view his violence against Mydei as a way of setting Mydei free.)

Okay, now the more recent stuff: The first time we see Mydei seemingly exercise any form of agency is in making the decision to bring the Kremnoans to Okhema, but from the players' perspective, we ultimately know this is no real agency either: The simulation demands that Mydei join the Flame-Chase--"fate" was always going to guide him to Aglaea in some shape or form. Furthermore, the decision to join Aglaea is framed by literally everyone else in the story as Mydei "submitting" to her authority, Mydei giving up his power to a "usurper," and Mydei being "bewitched," all phrases once again implying an inability to make his own decisions.

This ultimately proves true not long later, when, throughout the first portion of patch 3.1, we actively watch Mydei be manipulated, against his explicit wishes, into taking the coreflame of Strife.

Even though he says he doesn't condemn Aglaea and Tribbie for their manipulations, it doesn't change the fact that Mydei was being manipulated, pushed into a corner by Aglaea choosing to use the safety of the person he cared for as a weapon against him. It also doesn't change the fact that Mydei spends the entire first half of 3.1 admitting to multiple people that he's terrified of becoming the demigod of Strife and having that fear continually dismissed by people who basically tell him to just deal with it, because that's his role in the prophecy and his fears that taking on Strife will ultimately lead his people into meaningless death are really not that important in the grand scheme of things.

3.1 was literally "Watch the entire cast strip Mydei of his agency," the patch.

And then the craziest of them all: Finding out that it isn't just Cycle 33,550,336 Mydei who was struggling with a lack of autonomy but seemingly every Mydei, all the way back to Cycle 0, where he's once again put into a situation where he functionally has no choice but to comply:

In Cycle 0, we're told that Mydei brought the Kremnoans to Okhema and then went before the Okheman Council of Elders to sue for civil rights--literally all he asked for was equal rights for his people.

In return, Aglaea pulled the strings on the situation so that Mydei would lose this duel and she could make her demand of him: Join my emo band Flame-Chase Journey. (Again, nothing against Aglaea, she was doing what she thought she had to do, but damn what a cutthroat way to do it.)

Effectively, in 3.4 we get to once again watch Mydei trade himself to ensure the happiness of others, giving away his own freedom so that the Kremnoans could just have basic equal rights. What the fuck, Hoyo?

This was extortion in real time, right before our eyes.

Hell, Mydei not getting to make his own decisions happens even the game's silliest joke media!

Can't even sleep unmolested, constantly getting dragged around by Phainon? Just shaking my head, for real for real. LET MY BOY BE! 😂

Okay, back to being serious: Overall, Mydei's lack of agency is so consistent and so clear-cut, that even Mydei himself seems to be fully aware he has very little freedom amidst the crippling demands put upon him by his station and his prophecy:

This is why Mydei's decision in 3.1, to dissolve the Kremnoan dynasty, is framed so intensely as "taking back agency for himself," as choosing to make a decision that wasn't aimed at trying to make everyone else happy:

Making a decision that isn't to please others? Oh Mydei, you are so "single female protag finding her independence" coded.

This is framed as Mydei finally getting to make HIS OWN decision, his way to make a better future for his people. We're supposed to perceive this as Mydei casting off the shackles of others' perceptions of him to take the brave step forward and do what he believes is truly right. It's not about making others' happy, but about securing the only real way forward to a future, and the game tells us that Mydei only feels comfortable with his own fate after he's able to make this choice on behalf of his people--not with their permission, but by the virtue of finally finding his own voice.

Except thatttt... the moment you actually think about what is happening here, the illusion of Mydei having free will falls apart, and Amphoreus's cruel irony sets in.

Early in 3.1, Krateros says that Mydei is a headstrong person who always does what he wants:

But as we delve deeper into Mydei's story, it becomes clear that even Mydei's most headstrong decisions (such as bringing the Kremnoans to Okhema) aren't done in his own self-interest or simply whatever Mydei "pleases"--all of his decisions, every single one we're shown in the game, are done in the service of others, doing what Mydei feels compelled to do to fulfill his duty to protect the people he loves. He didn't bring the Kremnoans to Okhema just because he personally wanted to--he brought them there because he believed that was the only way to save them. He didn't join the Flame-Chase Journey of his own free will--it was just the only path to secure any future for his people at all.

As I've written before, even this decision in 3.1 (to dissolve the Kremnoan dynasty, take up the coreflame of Strife, and go home alone to fight the Black Tide) wasn't actually for Mydei himself.

In fact, it flat out runs contrary to Mydei's most deeply held personal wishes. Mydei didn't want to become Strife. Mydei didn't want to return to Kremnos's ways and spend every remaining moment of his life at war. Mydei was seeking a home to call his own--a land to finally belong in--and then had to give away all the peace and happiness he'd found in Okhema as his final gift to his people:

The decision in 3.1 doesn't actually represent Mydei gaining complete agency over his own decision-making or finally getting the freedom to pursue his own personal dreams--it's once again a decision he was obligated to make by his own unyielding sense of honor and his (admittedly noble) sense of responsibility for his people.

The fact that Mydei's decision to become the demigod of Strife still doesn't represent agency becomes doubly true with the reveal in 3.4 that all of Amphoreus is a pre-determined simulation, running on rails, with Mydei himself being a programmed figure unable to deviate from his assigned path. Every major decision simply leads down the same exact road that was decided eons ago: Mydei was always going to become the demigod of Strife. He was always going to leave Okhema. He was always going to die to Flame Reaver's blade.

The decision to return to Kremnos and take up Nikador's role is presented initially as Mydei's free will--but all along it was nothing more than playing into the "prophecy," playing on the side of the Black Tide and Lygus's goals. Mydei's character arc in 3.1 revolves soooo intensely around exercising agency, only for us to learn in 3.4 that he never stood a chance in the first place. (If this sounds familiar to Phainon's arc, that's because Mydei's arc is literally Phainon's arc, by the by.)

Ultimately, having the benefit of multiple patches of story now, we can look back over Mydei's current contributions to the plot and see the truly fascinating dichotomy of his character.

On the one hand, Mydei is a hyper-masculine character with a design that unquestionably insists on his identity as a man. A surface-level examination of his character presents a quintessentially masculine archetype: the wayward son, rejecting his father's shadow, growing into a role of stoic, solemn leadership, suppressing his own grief and loss to unwaveringly fulfill his duty as Chrysos Heir, prince, and king.

The obscured, hyperbolic retellings of his past paint him as a "hero of eld," an unmistakably male mythological figure akin to Achilles, Odysseus, or Gilgamesh.

Mydei refuses to be or even see himself as a victim, returning time and time again from death, stronger and more full of the wrath needed to survive in an apocalyptic world. Even when he has no freedom to actually make his own decisions, he does keep trying. He keeps fighting, endlessly, to make himself heard and to try to break the shackles of his fate, situating him firmly in the (traditionally) masculine figure of the "warrior."

But despite all of this exterior masculine trapping, Mydei's core inner conflicts are surprisingly feminine (that is, they're struggles more typically given to female characters in media):

Over and over and over again, we watch others speak for Mydei, rather than Mydei truly getting the chance to speak for himself. We're denied access to his inner world by the "they say"s and the "rumors rife," every single person getting their chance to weigh in on Mydei's story but Mydei.

In real time, we watch other characters dismiss his fears and hesitation as "foolishness," and interpret his feelings through their own lenses, without Mydei stepping up to correct them. We get to see Mydei struggle to articulate himself and make others take him seriously. People constantly tell him what he should do, what he shouldn't do, how he should act and how he shouldn't... His central conflict is explicitly centered on his fears of being unable to please everyone, and his ultimate role in the story is one of sacrifice, giving and giving and giving of himself to aid others.

One of the most common complaints about the roles assigned to female characters in media and one of the core litmus tests used to determine whether female characters have agency is the question "Does the plot happen to this character or do they drive the plot?"

The truth is that, for all his raging against the dying of the light, Mydei is a character who has things happen to him, rather than actually getting the chance to freely exercise self-determination in Amphoreus's plot.

So, so, so much of Mydei's character revolves around seizing back agency in a world that seeks to control every aspect of your existence--and this a story that has been told, time and again, with female characters. That's not to say that it's never been done with male characters before, of course it has, but that there is something incredibly interesting about making "finding your voice in a world that dismisses your feelings" the plot for a (supposedly) hyper-masculine character in a gacha game with a primarily male target audience.

Mydei, by all rights, should be one of the characters with the most power and most agency in all of Amphoreus. He's an extremely strong warrior, a kingslayer, a god. He's ripped, he's got a wicked heavy metal gore-filled trailer... On paper, he's "Man" with a capital M.

But Hoyo chose to do something more complicated with his character. They chose to do some truly interesting play on the question of autonomy, placing a Hero (also capital H) into the stereotypically restricted, silenced role where female protagonists have so often been relegated in the past, then left us players with the disconnect and discomfort of watching a male character be so bound by the expectations of others that even his greatest moment of defiance and free will turns out to just be playing into the hands of yet another person oppressing him.

Like so many female characters have in the past, Mydei doesn't get to be a "real" person with fully examined interiority. The game denies us this by insisting on his story being told almost entirely through the perceptions of others, by obscuring the truth of his past in a fog of confusion, by Mydei making the choices he is compelled to by duty and loyalty, not those that truly match his own inner wishes and dreams.

Mydei almost never gets the chance freely express his thoughts, have his feelings validated, or reclaim his freedom of choice from the systems exerting pressure on his life. The lion doesn't have its own historian, and we only get the truth of Mydei from Mydei himself in brief and barest flickers.

At the heart of Mydei's story lies a fascinating conundrum that creates a truly intriguing and layered character--all-powerful and yet powerless, hyper-masculine and yet voiceless, a myth more than a man.

Say whatever you want about Amphoreus's plot, pacing, etc., but geez, Mydei is a cool character.

#honkai star rail #mydei #hsr meta #character analysis #contains material up to patch 3.4 #tbh I didn't notice this lack of agency till you said it here #and I agree that it subconciously affects how we see the ship (it actually explains a lot xD)#but at the same time I personally like phaidei more than myphai (i like both but have a preference)#because the stereotypical masculinity of mydei being put in fem role is a great subversion of typical seme x uke dynamic #even if his role in the story rings feminine #from purely design perspective he is an epitome of a man #and when it comes to seme x uke discourse the looks is all that matters and this is how the top and bottom are determined #so I find it nice that it gets inverted with Phainon twink top and Mydei hunk bottom - it's just so fun to see smth new #and knowing his role is more fem in the story due to lakc of agency doesn't really change that tbh #as I also have the same preferrence for another character just like that - MCU Tony Stark who is also put in lack of agency role #and constantly fights to try to regain his agency from others while also being technically the most powerful man alive #it is stereotypical but it also scratches that itch of seeing a powerful man in a role that we were always put in #having to deal with what we always had to deal with #and it just makes me excited to see how they deal with it #so even if they end up bottoming I'm here with pom poms #cheering for them to regain their agency with my full chest #while also cheering for them to get that d they want #XD

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moontheoretist · 2 days ago

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I want to jump in so I will definitely stretch this post further haha.

So to answer some of @kyogre-blue's stuff:

I. I'm happy that I'm not the only one who is losing their mind over the fact that potentialy Khaslana was trying to hack his friends on top on trying to hack Irontomb. I lowkey considered that it could have be yet another potential reason why Mydei's backstory is so fucked up lol.

II. Yes, 12 factors mean that there are always 12 signals that become the demigods and turn into Titans in the next cycle. BUT it's not true that it's always the same signal. Mydei's signal name is most likely Polemos600 (Phainon's character story lists it) and he is assigned as Strife's demigod by the system. BUT Gnaeus of the previous cycle was not Polemos600. He was Leoreia300. The same is true for Anaxa who is SkeMma720, while Calypso was Minphia14. The signals are always connected because Gnaeus is the Titan and Mydei is the demigod and the signals were split into corresponding factors that need to compete and take over each other. They're NOT the same, but represent the identical factor of Strife / Romance / Reason etc.

Archive 03: In the 7,091,231st cycle, emulating the concept of Paths, electric signals were split into two entities. Signal data was preserved as gods for the next cycle, and a competitive relationship was set up against its identical factor, thus achieving evolution and iteration.

III. Castorice according to logs is the instance of a signal duplicating itself. Polyxia and Castorice were not supposed to exist. But they did. Either both being EpieiKeia216, or Castorice being EpieiKeia216 while Polyxia has a different codename (in this case we don't know the codename). The reason for why it's weird is because Polyxia DID deviate from the simulated path she should have taken, she rejected the idea of Castorice dying, and when the new cycle happened and she became Pollux the Dragon of Death i.e. Thanatos she REVIVED the signal that SHOULDN'T exist in this cycle and that signal was instantly assigned Death factor by the Simulation (latching onto it early, I guess simulation was like "why should I make new when this works too"). It also ended with Pollux bringing Castorice to the world of living, dying and literally screwing the idea of death in the entire simulation (which is the actual confusing part because game can't pick if Amphoreans are immortal, age and die or not, I'm still confused if they only die from being killed by Titankin and Black Tide monsters, what type of immortality they had (i.e. ancient Greek gods could be killed as their type of immortality was like "I live, never age, but can be killed if you know how or have a weapon that can kill me" - which usually meant "can be killed by fellow god or demigod or an artifact) and what the fact "there was no death in this world before the Black Tide descended" means when literally the entire Styxia is overflowing with water from Nether Realm and souls of the dead because Pollus while dying literally fell and blocked the only way into the Nether Realm, while at the same time being killed by the Black Tide meant losing your soul / memories and never going to Nether Realm in the first place i.e. not being able to reincarnate... make it make sense).

In the later stages of iteration, the Death Titan, as a single entity, split into symmetrical selves, becoming two factors. In this cycle, however, the two factors experienced profound identity divergence. The threshold of Equilibrium was breached and tipped toward Destruction.

[Reddit even has a venn diagram.]

IV. Polyxia and Castorice were definitely not trading, because like I said above there were many Era Novas before the one in which we meet Castorice, and each had different set of signals undergoing the whole Flame Chase journey and we know the idea of Era Nova existed since cycle 19,110,218, but supposedly Chrysos Heirs never achieved autonomous Era Nova (i.e. without any external help, which I assume would be Lygus) for the next 10 million cycles because the first occurence of the autonomous completion of Era Nova happens in cycle 28,371,272. The Phase 2 of the experiment ends and then Phase 3 starts at cycle 28,371,274. We know several cycles were archived and the last one that we know the number of was 28,371,292. We don't know how many cycles passed since that cycle till Phainon and Cyrene's cycle. We only know that we are past 28 million cycles of the actual simulation when Phainon and Cyrene's "last" cycle happens. Theirs was supposed to be the end of the experiment so I guess phase 3 would last a bit too before signals were perfected in the way Lygus wanted as even tho they're always different signals and different people, some transfer of data occurs making every new batch of signals better than the last. (Think of it like signals having babies without actually procreating xD) But then Cyrene goes "fuck you Lygus", does Uno Reverse and on top on those 28 million cycles, she and Phainon (using power of Fuli's Remembrance - this is how they reset the loops (and I insist on calling them loops because calling everything "cycle" gets confusing very quickly) of Eternal Reccurence using power of Remembrance that Cyrene borrows from Fuli every time Phainon uses "power of destruction" to destroy Time upon which "Fuli records the story of Amphoreus" - which is confusing because it suggests that every new Cyrene of every new ER is also already the Time itself despite the fact that only the ER0 Cyrene became the demigod of Time). So there were millions of Chrysos Heirs fullfilling the roles of 12 demigods by this point, not 2 batches constantly swapping places.

3.5 trailer addition:

(And this doesn't even address how Evernight is ALSO Time. And how there seems to be 13 coreflames and Cyrene may have the 13th one).

V. With Phainon being in 2 places at the same time for ERs tho it's always the same signal Neikos496. It's just it's always Khaslana ERx and Phainon ERx+1 so they're the same signal but also different version of the same signal because it comes from different ER loop. It wouldn't be possible for actual cycles I think because simulation wouldn't be able to have 2 Neikos496. One of them would always turn another signal codename or simulation would turn them into twins as well and either give them the same codename and avoid the glitch by yeeting one into new cycle or assign a new codename (which would be then the exact same issue as Castorice and Polyxia). In any case even in ERs they "merge" at some point so there is always only one Neikos496 by the end of every ER loop.

VI. I have no idea what Phainon / Khaslana is doing but I think that his interference changes things significantly. So even if we assume he wouldn't be ever able to stop signals of Mydei and Hyacine to be born, his interference still means that simulation is not running as it should and is experiencing glitches, to the point that nymphs are being born and literally fuck with us. (I can't every time they become kaomoji and throw some wild breaking the 4th wall sentence).

VII. I agree they changed their mind on FR presentation because he keeps popping randomly, doing nothing for extended periods of time, then randomly swapping how well he talks from first talking semi-ok, then not ok, then semi-ok again to evetually go back to broken in 3.4, which lowkey excludes ever-progressing corruption and seriously I need someone to fix it.

VIII. I agree with @starcurtain that Khaslana after a certain cycle just chose to be a nuisance for the sake of the plot and that is very in character for Kevin Kaslana expy not gonna lie lol. Phainon is always lowkey following Kiana Kaslana's fate, while Khaslana / FR is always following Kevin Kaslana's fate (which may mean that we will get our puppy Phainon back in next patches but Khaslana will just die).

Detangling Mydei's Backstories Backstory?

My last post, casting doubt on 3.2's revelation that Mydei's immortality is deliberate on his part, led to some interesting discussion in the comments that definitely reinforced my earlier thoughts that the inconsistencies in Mydei's backstory are too numerous to be accidental. Star Rail is not known for its flawless continuity (Robin and Sunday's backstory, I'm looking at you lol), but usually the inconsistencies are not so overt, and repeated so many times, that they become central to the entire plot of a character.

So I wanted to refine my earlier theory a bit: I'm cautiously optimistic that there are enough signs that the inconsistencies in Mydei's backstory are deliberate, and that the Mydei of the current cycle in Amphoreus is actively experiencing an entanglement between two different timelines, without (yet) consciously recognizing the incompatibility of his own "memories."

When we work from the standpoint that the events of Mydei's backstory can be separated into two distinct timelines, the inconsistencies vanish:

The "Sea of Souls" Timeline

This is the most prominent timeline, and the one that appears most accurate for "our" Mydei. In this timeline, Mydei was thrown into the Sea of Souls as a tiny infant and spent the first nine years of his life there. This is confirmed both in the flashback we're provided early in 3.1, as well as in Mydei's voicelines and character stories.

After nine years, he crawled out of the sea (possibly motivated by witnessing Tribbie's "star" in the sky). On the same day (or very near it), he met with a band of Kremnoan exiles.

Whether this was a larger group already, constituting a small "detachment" army of exiles, or just started with the five exiled friends and Mydei then grew into a small army by picking up other exiles over time, is still unclear. However, at this point, Mydei makes no mention of returning to Kremnos and instead goes straight from "leaving the sea" to "living ten years in exile:"

This is the key point of inconsistency between the two "halves" of Mydei's story--either he lived in Kremnos or he didn't. We can handwave here and say "Yes, he returned to Kremnos with his friends and they just hid their identities, leaving Kremnos years later in a self-imposed exile," but the story gives us absolutely no indication that this realistically could have happened. Mydei never once mentions hiding his identity, changing his appearance, or living a double life in the city, and never explains how he would have had access to the inner city of Kremnos ("as befitting a crown prince") and the royal library, yet still go totally unnoticed by his father or anyone loyal to Eurypon, including Krateros. (There's also no explanation at all for why he would have wanted to return to a city ruled by someone who tried to murder him and where he would have had to live life under a fake identity just to get by, but you know...)

Instead, the game does give us several pieces of information indicating that the five Kremnoan exiles did not return to Kremnos after meeting Mydei:

First, Mydei's character stories confirm that Mydei deliberately hid his name while traveling in exile across Amphoreus, indicating that he knew he would be recognized by Eurypon/Eurypon's loyalists if he didn't hide his identity. This awareness suggests it is extremely unlikely that Mydei could have returned to Kremnos without being identified:

This also suggests that, at this point in this timeline, no one in Castrum Kremnos knew for sure that Mydeimos had survived being thrown into the Sea of Souls and returned. This is further confirmed by a memory fragment where Krateros says there has been a "rumor" that the leader of the exiled Kremnoan army is one who "defied death." Krateros alone makes the assumption that this could be Mydei and decides to defect to aid him:

This memory suggests two things clearly: Mydei was not living in Kremnos at the time Krateros defected, and the exile of all of Mydei's friends must have taken place before they met Mydei, years in the past, as there is no way an entire small army could have been exiled from Kremnos, with Mydei in toe, and not at all attract Krateros's attention until after they were gone.

The idea that Mydei never returned to Kremnos is further enforced by Eurypon, who did not recognize Mydei when he confronted him, to the point that he didn't believe Mydei was even Kremnoan. This suggests that Eurypon not only didn't know Mydei's true identity--he'd never seen him before at all, making it extremely unlikely that Mydei was walking around Castrum Kremnos, talking to Chryseus Leo, and reading in the royal library all under some false identity for years. Eurypon certainly wouldn't have been capable of exiling someone he'd never seen before from Kremnos, in any case!

Therefore, we can assume the series of events in this timeline is pretty straightforward: Mydei entered the Sea of Souls as a baby, came out nine years later, went straight into a life of exile with his five friends, amassed power and support for ten years, and then returned to seek vengeance on his father.

The only remaining question in this timeline becomes "When did Mydei join up with Okhema?"

I think, in this timeline, it makes the most sense for Mydei to have only joined up with Okhema after killing his father. In 3.1, Mydei confirms to Phainon that all his friends died before he was able to kill his father, and that none of them ever made it to Okhema:

Therefore, the final order of events for the more prominent timeline is:

Dumped into the sea as an infant, nine years in the Sea of Souls

Ten years in exile with his friends amassing strength and support

Returns to Kremnos, kills his father, and the last of his friends dies that day

Then he defects to Okhema, leading any of the Kremnoans willing to follow him there.

By itself, this story makes perfect sense. If this was all the information we'd been given, there wouldn't have been any gaps.

Unfortunately, we also have a whole other set of information that massively conflicts with these events, which can only really be explained two ways: Either Hoyo messed up (again) and really dropped the consistency ball when it comes to writing Mydei's backstory... Or there's an entire separate timeline going on. Personally, I'm leaning toward the latter, because there are just too many seemingly deliberate fingers in the story pointing toward the inconsistencies for them to feel entirely unintentional to me.

Therefore, I propose that Mydei's memories are actually getting infiltrated by a second, entirely different timeline:

The "Gorgo Lives" Timeline

From 3.0 all the way to 3.2, we're given numerous pieces of information that point to a wholly different order to the events of Mydei's life, contrasting the story that Mydei tells Phainon in the Garden. At first, these events seem scattered and nonsensical, contradicting the "main" timeline in too many ways to be anything but errors... But when taken as a whole, we can build a second coherent timeline out of these events if we make one assumption: There is a timeline where Gorgo lived longer.

In the second timeline which is intruding on Mydei's memories, there appears to be one key point of divergence: Gorgo did not die dueling Eurypon. Either she never challenged him to the duel, or (more likely) she was never successfully poisoned, and therefore it's possible she won the duel, allowing her to rescue Mydei from the sea.

Working from that possibility, a second complete timeline emerges:

Mydei was thrown into the Sea of Souls as an infant but did not drift there for nine years. Instead, he was rescued and brought back to Kremnos, where he was allowed to grow up in the inner city, with access to both Chryseus Leo, who served as his teacher, and access to the royal library, which he is proud enough of to call "his" library. He is able to lead Phainon and the Trailblazer around Castrum Kremnos even in its ruined state because he grew up there, spending enough time there to know the city like the back of his hand:

This is where we can slot in the inconsistent memories Mydei has of Gorgo:

(By the way, although Mydei writes this scene off as a dream, you can actually hear Oronyx's whisper play in the black screen seconds before this "dream" occurs...)

But okay, let's say this is just a wishful dream. Maybe this scene never happened. If all we got of Gorgo supposedly raising Mydei was this moment in 3.1, I might agree that it was just a dream (other than there being no reason to play Oronyx's sound effect there, but you know). However, in 3.2 they then hit us with this:

That's multiple moments now pointing to a timeline where Gorgo raised Mydei. Once is handwave-able--twice? That's deliberate.

In this secondary timeline, Mydei appears to have grown up as Kremnos's beloved crown prince, being warmly embraced by his people (at least until Kremnos fell into calamity). Apparently his days consisted of eating pomegranates, training for combat, playing with Kremnos's kids, and hanging out with his five friends. We see snippets of this idyllic life (along with his five friends appearing to be roughly the same age as him--something that likely wouldn't be true in the "main" timeline, by the way) on Mydei's long march back into Castrum Kremnos:

I know some people took this to be Mydei hallucinating or just wishfully imagining a life where he was able to be happy with his friends, possibly even some metaphorical "encountering the souls of the departed in a paradise," but I don't think this is true. Every single time Mydei phases in and out of this "hallucination," the visual effect and the sound effect of Oronyx are distinctly played--the exact same sound and visuals that play when Trailblazer activates Oronyx's prayer to jump between timelines.

Mydei himself doesn't seem to quite understand what is happening to him in this moment, as you can hear him stumble and pant as he repeatedly goes through flashes of Oronyx's power. You can listen to comparison video clips on the prior post I made about Mydei's backstory.

Furthermore, if we work from the assumption that these moments actually represent a rupture between timelines, then the rest of the inconsistencies can finally be cleared up:

In 3.0, Mydei says that his choice to leave Castrum Kremnos was not a forced exile but a "self-imposed" one:

And this aligns with what he stated in the Garden of Life to Phainon, that he and his friends "left Castrum Kremnos" to go into this self-imposed exile, rather than having never returned to Kremnos from the sea:

Furthermore, this also aligns with the angry NPCs in the past version of Castrum Kremnos that Trailblazer and Castorice travel back to:

Remember that this version of Castrum Kremnos was supposed to be occurring while Eurypon was still alive, so there is absolutely no way this line makes sense in the same universe where Eurypon didn't even know Mydei had survived. There isn't any way, in "our" timeline, that Mydei could have been both the "crown prince" of Kremnos for these NPCs and completely unknown to his father, the king.

These NPCs, furthermore, directly accuse Mydei of "deserting Kremnos," suggesting that Mydei was living in Castrum Kremnos as their prince, and then abandoned them to join Aglaea in Okhema, getting himself and everyone who went with him labelled as "traitors to Kremnos" in the process. None of this makes sense in the context of a timeline where no one in Kremnos knew he had even survived.

Instead, all of these elements point to a different sequence of events:

Gorgo lived, likely winning her duel and thereby (likely) giving her the right to save Mydei from the Sea of Souls and bring him back to Kremnos. He was raised by his mother as the beloved crown prince of Kremnos. Then, years later, as his father and Nikador both descended into full madness, Mydei and the Kremnoan detachment defected.

But what would have triggered this sudden need to defect after years of leading Kremnos as a well-liked prince?

The flashback between Mydei and Eurypon actually suggests a possible reason:

Apparently, at some point, in some timeline, Mydei knew about Eurypon's plan to break Nikador's divinity into separate parts and seal him away, harnessing the power of their titan for himself.

Yet the Mydei of 3.0 seems to have no idea about any of this, never able to give any explanation for how Nikador has degraded so much nor why Nikador is seemingly unkillable. Castorice, Mem, and the Trailblazer have to come up with the idea to go back in time to the past Kremnos by themselves, because Mydei never makes any mention of there ever having been a plot to break up and seal away Nikador's divinity, even when they walk past the very blades that did the sealing.

Finally, there's one last piece of conflicting information: While talking to Phainon in the Garden of Life, Mydei states that all of his friends died before the detachment could ever join up with Okhema and that all of their deaths occurred by the time he went to kill his father. But this conflicts with the NPCs above, who state that Mydei had already defected to Okhema and joined the Flame Chase Journey as a Chrysos Heir while his father was still alive.

This inconsistency is further reinforced by a memory fragment with Krateros, who confirms that Mydei had joined up with Okhema already before killing his father:

Putting all of this together, the complete series of events for this second timeline becomes:

Infant Mydei is quickly rescued from the Sea of Souls, is instead raised by his mother, and grows up as the crown prince of Castrum Kremnos with his five friends.

At some point, years later, he discovers Eurypon's plot to break up and imprison Nikador's divinity, and he and his friends and supporters defect from Kremnos as a result.

Either they go straight to Okhema (I'm inclined to say that "ten years of wandering" doesn't fit, chronologically speaking, into this secondary timeline) or they do wander a bit, but ultimately, Mydei reaches Okhema and aligns with Aglaea before killing his father.

After aligning the Kremnoan Detachment with Okhema, Mydei returns to Castrum Kremnos to kill his father, possibly to halt Eurypon's evil plan to harness Nikador's power.

At some point in this timeline, presumably before Mydei returns to kill his father, Gorgo likely still dies (possibly killed by Eurypon and/or Nikador), which explains why the Gorgo in the Sea of Souls seems to be the one convinced that she raised Mydei.

And this is just pure personal speculation, because there isn't enough evidence to really confirm it, but I almost feel like we can even pinpoint how/when the whole decision to defect to Okhema took place. At the end of Mydei's flashbacks to the "peaceful" Kremnos, Peucesta says that Mydei has been away from Kremnos for a while.

Leonnius assumes that Mydei was away on some apparently extended training trip, but this moment specifically ends with Gorgo welcoming Mydei home and asking him one very important question:

Obviously these lines are doing double duty, symbolically welcoming the present Mydei back to the ruins of Castrum Kremnos and asking him whether he's finally ready to take on his role as the "Guardian of Amphoreus." But as the wiki notes, this takes place in a flashback to the past, and for the "Mydei of the past" (aka the Mydei of the alternate timeline), this could very well have been Mydei disappearing from Kremnos to make contact with Aglaea in Okhema, and Gorgo questioning him about his decision to commit himself to the Flame Chase Journey, leading up to an ultimate and permanent defection from Kremnos. (This is just speculation though, trying to tie the last few loose ends together.)

Anyway, when taken from this perspective, that there are two separate backstories here, one from a world where Gorgo lived and the more prominent one where she died, we can sort all the seeming inconsistencies in Mydei's backstory into two surprisingly tidy and complete timelines.

I haven't yet found anything in any Mydei scene that doesn't fit one of these two scenarios, so I'm starting to definitely feel optimistic here that this writing was intentional, and that the "contradictory" backstory we're seeing for Mydei isn't "the worst continuity Star Rail has served up to date," but instead an actual deliberate choice to present us with a character whose memories are a hodge-podge of two divergent timelines, snippets of one timeline constantly erupting and "filling in the blanks" of the other.

I think this would be a fascinating way to lead up to the idea that Amphoreus's world isn't real, that it's a cobbled together story or set of memories that someone is barely holding together, and that it's constantly cyclical in nature, with events repeating with slight variations across times. The idea that Mydei is actually experiencing two different sets of memories crushed together into a tangled jumble and that he's only just now starting to become aware of the discrepancies would be such an excellent way to reinforce the "unreality" of Amphoreus's plot as a whole.

I really hope this is the direction that they take the story... Or at least that I won't one day be looking at all my Mydei posts and sadly thinking to myself that I put a lot more thought into the character's backstory than his own writers did, RIPPPPP. 😂😂😂

Cope with me, people!

#hsr lore #3.4 discussion #amphoreus discussion #mention of info from 3.5 trailer

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moontheoretist · 14 days ago

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my thoughts during the 3.0 quest

also phaidei nation where you at???? did not expect to ship these two so hard but they're giving me so much brainrot we love our dumb jock rival boyfriends

#honkai star rail #amphoreus in a nutshell #phaidei #myphai

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moontheoretist · 14 days ago

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Comparing Aventurine's "Keeping Up With Star Rail" to Mydei's is so funny because

Ratio: 🥺👉👈 D-Does he like me?

Meanwhile...

Phainon: I would like to confirm, for the public record, that Mydei and I fuck.

#honkai star rail #mydei #phainon #phaidei #myphai

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moontheoretist · 14 days ago

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the funniest thing about phaidei for me

#phainon sucks at emotions so badly lol #while mydei is the prime example of goid handling of his mental health #phainon would never lol #honkai star rail #phaidei #myphai

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moontheoretist · 14 days ago

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Feixiao! 🔥 commission for HSR

#hsr feixiao #feixiao #my beloved

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moontheoretist · 15 days ago

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love how 3.4 quest was five hours of phaidei leading everyone to aedes elysiae on the gay marriage dromas

#honkai star rail #phaidei #myphai #wedding!!

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moontheoretist · 15 days ago

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There is such a possibility indeed. But listen to this: Khaslana waiting for Mydei's birth to take on the coreflame of Strife so he could off Eurypon before he throws Mydei into the Sea of Souls with Gorgo as reigning Queen.

My phaidei / myphai shipper ass digs Gorgo as sole queen raising her son as her dead self claimed she did. But at the same time it also means that the 2nd timeline you listed could as well be thanks to Khaslana's interference. Not just by existing but by just being there on time to kick some delusional king ass. As we still don't know if that particular prophecy about Mydei was real or some people made it up in order to weaken Kremnoan dynasty.

And it's not like this would be the first time we heard about fake prophecies (Tribios memory of escaping Janusopolis with the coreflame of Janus was very clear about the common practice of simply lying while giving the prophecies) or shifting contents of the prophecy due to ERs - like with Phainon whose prophecy was initialy about witnessing Era Nova alone but then it shifted into bearing the coreflames until TB ushers the ''pale dawn''. (Which by the way begs the question if in ER0 Mydei's prophecy was the same [yes I'm obsessed with this topic] - If yes: Who struck him in the back? Phainon (out of necessity because he got corrupted)? Or some random monster? As FR didn't exist yet. | If no: What it said then? And how he died? Was he swallowed by the black tide and fell off the face of Amphoreus together with disintegrating world while Phainon and Cyrene had their showdown with Lygus?).

In any case ERs seem to have a data leak. Why this data leak is mostly about Mydei? I don't know but sometimes errors are like this - they touch only one file directory instead of all of them and then we poor ITs have to figure out not only how to fix it but also why only this one thing was affected which often ends with us never learning why actually.

BTW this video points out (obvious thing I missed) that in ER1 nobody got their death prophecy because nobody became a demigod, which supports the idea that prophecies may change withing the ERs.

I mean nobody except Tribios.

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