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birdgirlamp · 26 days ago

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In Defense of Focalors

Spoilers for the Fontaine Archon Quest!

Beta read by @a-small-creature (you’re the best!! 💜)

This is a subject I’ve been meaning to compile my thoughts on for a while now. There is a *lot* of commentary and opinions about Focalors, coming from many different sources. It’d be hard to find two people with exactly the same feelings about her. This is particularly striking given that she really only has about 20 minutes of screen time total, with her conversation with Neuvillette prior to her execution marking her first and last appearance in the game.

In particular I’d like to speak to the discourse initiated by @roseofthewind and @theshadechamber, to add on to and politely disagree with them (respectively).

I think the feature of Focolars that seems to be most discussed about her is her apparent apathy during her discussion with Neuvillette. People tend to get really hung up on the way that Focalors chooses to communicate her lore dump, even more so than the content of their discussion. This leads to the common misconception that Focalors is emotionally detached in general, and particularly with regards to Furina.

Canonically, the reason that Focalors comes off as so detached is because Furina is her human manifestation, whereas Focalors is merely the remains of her divinity. Fanon-wise, roseofthewind speculates that this is an extension of Furina’s overall autistic coding. I’m personally very attached to this headcanon, but even if we disregard it as not intentional by the writers, I think there is a lot of *in universe* evidence provided by her discussion with Neuvillette that we cannot use Focalors’ tone as an indicator of her intent.

Focalors does not modify her tone through out her conversation with Neuvillette, even when describing very grim subjects like Furina’s suffering and her own imminent execution. People have extrapolated from this that Focalor’s seemingly blithe tone indicated that she didn’t care about Furina’s suffering, and only saw her as a puppet to enact her plans with no regard to Furina’s own feeling or autonomy.

In her conversation with Neuvillette, Focalors *explicitly debunks* the notion that she is apathetic either to her own demise or Furina’s suffering. She says, “Although I do not sound it, faced with death I find myself a little afraid”. This line is utilized to indicate to the viewer that you should not be using Focalor’s tone to indicate how she is feeling. Nothing about Focalor’s demeanor indicates this internal fear that she expresses, and she’s aware of that disconnect between how she’s feeling and what she’s emoting.

This logic can be extended to her feelings regarding Furina as well. The two sticking points regarding Furina seem to be 1) her blasé attitude about cursing her (also brought up with Neuvillette) and 2) that Focalors did not tell Furina the whole truth about her deception.

Let’s start with the infamous scene pointed to by all Focalors-haters, possibly the one that was the basis for The Shade Chamber’s negative opinion of Focalors in general, and very explicitly discussed as a huge sticking point for several YouTube commentators on this cutscene. Focalors, seemingly almost mockingly, declares that she cursed Furina right after waxing poetic about how much Furina meant to her. This line is very frequently taken out of context as an indication of Focalors’ cold or indifferent attitude towards Furina’s suffering. But people tend to forget a lot of context surrounding it.

Firstly, Furina is a manifestation of Focalors. Focalors is probably engaging in a little gallow’s humor about her own dark, messed up situation to alleviate the tension with Neuvillette. She engages in this tactic multiple times in their discussion when Neuvillette seems distressed by their conversation, alternating between being blandly factual and dry, slightly self-deprecating humor. She even uses this technique when he’s distressed about her imminent death, clarifying that she never saw her work as just culminating in her death, that rather she’s proud of the success of her plan and he should be celebrating the return of his powers, not moping about her fate. The part of the conversation about cursing Furina was not an isolated incident, and in this context it’s clear that she isn’t belittling Furina’s pain but rather cracking a dark joke at her own expense, contrasting how much she loves Furina with being situationally forced to hurt her for the fulfillment of her plans.

If that intent wasn’t clear on its own or was misunderstood by her tone, she goes on to clarify what she meant a little later in the conversation, when Neuvillette remarks on Furina’s resiliency in the face of pressure that a human psyche wasn’t made to withstand. Focolars goes on to agree with Neuvillette and praise Furina’s dedication to the ruse, adding, “Even though Furina is technically a manifestation of myself, I definitely owe her an apology”. This indicates that she is cognizant of Furina’s pain and regrets that Furina had to unduly suffer in the culmination of her plans to save Fontaine.

But then this brings up the question: if she really did care about Furina, why did she leave her in the dark about the full context of the plan? Neuvillette asks her this point blank, and she gives a vague answer, saying that to fool the heavenly principles you must first fool yourself. I think it’s fair to say this answer is inadequate, but it opens the door to a lot of speculation about why withholding information from Furina was necessary.

I think the simplest explanation is that, in order for the prophecy to be fulfilled, Furina needed to buy into her own role as much as possible. It’s important to remember that while most of the characters focus almost exclusively on the final slate of the prophecy, wherein the hydro archon is weeping on her throne, the immediately preceding tablet predicts Furina being outted as a fraud in front of the people. If Furina went into this knowing she’d be outed at some point regardless, I think that would dramatically decrease her dedication to the ruse, because she would just assume that was all part of the plan anyway. The Shade Chamber accused Focalors of intentionally setting Furina up to fail by withholding information like this, and while I think it’s true that Focalors did deliberately set Furina up to fail at *maintaining the ruse*, from her perspective that was inseparable with setting her up to *succeed* at playing her part to ultimately save Fontaine. Additionally, Focalors deliberately withholding her identity from Furina and referring to herself as “Mirror-Me” implies some concern that the heavenly principles might be monitoring their conversation, or that she needed a failsafe in case Furina was unable to keep up the charade. If Furina knows as little as possible, that’s fewer aspects of the plan that could get leaked.

However, why Focalors withheld the information she did is largely speculative. But with the information she *did* provide Furina, I think it is inaccurate to suggest that Focalors unduly manipulated Furina into going along her with plan. Focalors’ plan depended on Furina’s voluntary buy in, and while she certainly didn’t reveal all of the details of her plan upfront, she was very clear that Furina would suffer if she chose this path. While Focalors was relying on Furina agreeing, she laid out all the facts to ensure that it was Furina’s decision to participate.

If we are somehow arguing that Furina was just ignorantly manipulated into doing this against her will, we are removing Furina’s agency and the heroism from her choice, casting her as a hapless victim of Focalors’ machinations, which I believe fundamentally undermines the point of Furina’s character arc. Yes, she was in a position where she was the only one who could save Fontaine and that puts some moral pressure on her (“why do I have to be the one to suffer?”) but crucially she *chooses* to embrace this plan, saying that in comparison to the lives of the people of Fontaine her own pain was a small price to pay. Arguing that she was tricked, deceived, or manipulated into going along with this denies the truth that she chose to do this for the greater good. And as for Focalors perspective, regardless of whether you agree with her judgement call on this, she believed that she was providing as much information as she could without jeopardizing her plan. In no way was she withholding information for the purpose of exacerbating Furina’s pain or because she was apathetic to Furina’s suffering.

Overall, I think Focalors is a complex character. You definitely don’t have to agree with all her choices or say she’s some perfect angel. She did use Furina and Neuvillette as facets of her plan and deprived them of information. She made a tough, and morally gray, choice that the ends justified the means. But I think that the actual complexity of her character is overshadowed by getting hung up on her tone in most of the discussions surrounding her actions and motives.

It’s important to remember that Focalors did all of this to save all of the innocent citizens of Fontaine, and to right the ancient wrong of the Heavenly Principles stealing Neuvillette’s birthright. While many archon characters have expressed wariness about the motives of the heavenly principles, Focalors is the only character who actually took action in direct defiance of an unjust order sent down from the heavens. *Even Nahida*, the least morally gray of the all the archons, expressed regret for the wrongs that were done to Apep but expressed no interest in fixing them. While you could argue (probably correctly) that Apep would misuse their power, remember that the only reason Neuvillette was sympathetic to the people of Fontaine and acted as a just leader when his powers were restored was because Focalors deliberately set him up to have hundreds of years to warm up to people before she gave him back his powers.

I’m not saying anyone needs to love Focalors. But I just want to point out that there is a ton of evidence, based on what Focalors explicitly says are her motives, that she is far from apathetic about the suffering of Furina or anyone else. If the discourse is only focused on her tone, it obscures the content of her discussion and her actual feelings.

#genshin impact #focalors #meta post #genshin impact furina #genshin impact neuvillette #genshin impact fontaine #genshin impact archon quest #Genshin impact lore

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theographos · 1 year ago

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Have you heard of Inazuma ?

Ahhh Inazuma... Land of eternity, who was mainly inspired by Japan and its culture.

I play the game since 2020, and I can say that Inazuma was a pretty big deal when it got out. First of all, it was the first big region that we were introduced to since the beginning of the game. Yes there was Liyue and Mondstadt, but they came with the game so... No real reason to get hyped about them.

It was also a region who got talked about a lot, like I remember that most of the Youtubers I was watching at the time were sponsorized by Hoyoverse to talk about it's region. And just the fact that it was based on japan made it even popular on the internet. What I want to say by that is that it was of course a trap for all of the weebs to fall into.

A good trap really, the region had a lot of new content, a bunch of really good characters like Arataki Itto (my lovely main) and the final result is just so pretty.

It was a lovely gift, made with the finest wrap and the biggest promises towards the players of the game. And when they all got rid of that wrap to actually get into the plot content of Inazuma, they (and me included) were delighted to see a plot line full of junk.

So a few disclaimers before we dive into why Inazuma's archon quest was a mess :

I am not blaming anyone for liking Inazuma. Just because you like something doesn't mean it's flawless, so don't come at me for that. I have no say over what anyone likes or dislikes as long as it's not illegal or obviously endangering someone's mental or physical health. And liking a region in Genshin Impact is none of that, so don't see any slander on any character of the game. I'm pointing fingers at the writers behind the region and most importantly Hoyoverse itself.

I will also criticize how they used Raiden Shogun's character quest to make most of the evolution of Inazuma. A character quest is not accessible by people under the level of 40, so there is no real reason as to why they did that. It just makes the main plot less accessible to the main players, and so I don't consider what happens in the Raiden Shogun's character quest as a valid part of the main plot line.

There will contain spoilers about Sumeru's archon quest, but none about Fontaine. For personal reasons that are too long to talk about in this post I haven't played Fontaine's archon quest yet. Yes, even the first act. And no, I do not wish to be spoiled about anything about Fontaine.

My whole rant, including the introduction and the disclaimers, is over 2.3K long, take it or leave it. I also happen to believe that longer is better. Yes it is time consuming to read all of this, but this is my way of showing that I care. Plus good storytelling needs time. Like I said, take it or leave it, if you don't want to read this whole rant then it's okay, as long as you don't blame me for not doing something shorter.

So now that we are clear on those points, we shall begin.

My first point is that the archon quest is too short.

Like way too short. We barely have time to get a proper tase of what Inazuma is like, and we also barely have time to process our traveler's character arc. The first part of the archon quest screams of how much the writers knew they had to add the part in which the Traveler refused to help anyone, but they were bothered by it. So they tried to wrap it up quickly by making the traveler see the problem directly. The second part is laughable at best, I mean we all saw the memes about how the war cinematic looked off, like we just have 10 soldiers and 10 rebels against one another and we're supposed to understand that the conflict is big ? And the last part is confusing, mainly because of the sudden apparition of Kazuha, who got a whole character arc while we trying to beat up Signora.

And it's not like Hoyoverse isn't capable of making a character arc during an archon quest. Venti had his little character arc, Scaramouche has his character arc behind the scenes during the Sumeru Archon Quest, but us player are still aware of its evolution, with for example the visions of that one npc researcher. And if we take a look at Honkai : Star Rail, Dan Heng also got to have a whole character arc really similar to the one with Kazuha, but they made it relevant to the plot.

They are capable of all of that, if they gave more time to develop it by having a bigger archon quest. Either by making a part 4 and maybe a part 5, either by making longer archon quests.

My second point is that there is too much unnecessary quests.

Sure, for gameplay purposes it's perfect to have a lot of quest, because it means a lot of content. But with Inazuma it really isn't the case.

We had a whole archon quest, well more like a prologue quest, to introduce Kazuha's motivations through Beidou's fighting competition. I would understand if it was a world quest, i mean they did that with the chasm : an archon quest locked behind a world quest. The world quest could have been about the whole trip towards Inazuma, with the beginning about the fighting tournament. But nope, it's overly long for almost nothing, and it raises another point of mine

They based their whole plot on making the players like their characters. It's not a bad thing, I love Kazuha with all my heart, but our time with him isn't making the plot come forward. Just like, having to do Yoimiya and Ayaka's character quest have nothing to do with plot. You just hang out with them and learn a bit about their personal lives. It's great, but what about the plot ? Okay cool you made a deep dive into Raiden Shogun's motivations during her character quest, but what about the plot ?

They gave too much time over things that weren't necessary for the plot, and like I said previously, didn't give enough time to important parts.

My third point is that it doesn't even fufill the concept of an Archon Quest.

Every archon quest makes a deep dive into the Archon's motivation, how it affected their land and how they'll arrange the situation. For example :

Venti's entire core is to fight to let his people be free. He gave them everything they needed, and let them take their own decisions in order to not become another tyrant. But some people, like Dvalin, saw that move as him giving up on them. So, he made everything clear towards Dvalin and stayed to help him get better.

Zhongli's entire core is to fight to protect his people. He saw war, he saw death but he survived. He created the Adepti to help him, he also sort of created the Qixing to help him rule over Liyue. But now he becomes old, and doesn't want to see everything that he has done come to rot after he passes away. So he decides to retire himself from his position to force the Qixing and the Adepti to work together without him to help Liyue.

And if we compare Raiden to that well... She makes her people suffer, only she is happy with eternity, and she reflects upon that after the archon quest. But she has the potential to be so much more than that, heck it's not like she didn't become popular with the few times we see her in the archon quest, so looking back now there was no point in making her not that present in her own archon quest. Even Nahida, who is locked inside her own temple at the time we meet her, gets to have an equal amount of screentime as every other archon during their quest.

And also every archon quest shows how much every archon is different by their way of ruling :

Venti thought the bestest thing for his people was to leave and give them the freedom to do anything.

Zhongli thought the bestest thing for his people was to give them a safe haven and to dedicate his whole life to serve them instead of trying to really "rule" over them.

Nahida's people never gave her a chance to actually try to be their leader. They stayed focused on the past and let bad people morphed the values of Sumeru into something horrible.

And Raiden Shogun was supposed to show that for her the bestest thing was to keep her land in check, to make sure everything stays at the right place, so that no one has to ever feel grief and feel "nostalgic" of the past like she did.

Which brings me to my fourth point, which is that Raiden Shogun has control over nothing.

Yes she controls what the commission do, yes she has the power to do a vision hunt decree. But, when we take a look at Inazuma, we can see that she do not have any actual control. Four of the six islands in Inazuma are not liveable, and the fifth island is actually full of people who do not worship her, who do not want her. There is a rebellion going on, and she hasn't done anything more than send her army. The magical sakura tree in Narukami is slowly decaying, but nope there's nothing she can do about apparently. It's as if she doesn't even know it's happening.

She is described as omnipresent over the mortals. She is described as always making sure Inazuma reaches the goal of "eternity", and yet everything is going nuts, she doesn't have full control over who goes in and out of her country since there are still immigrants in Rito. I would have understood if Monstadt was in that state for example. After all most of the problems in the islands are god-related, so really no one except a god can do anything about it.

And I would have understood if the main problem was that she thinks she is omnipresent but really everything is out of control, but no, the point of the archon quest is to make us understand that the people want things to change, they don't want her to be overly in control.

I'm not against the fact that the Traveler is often the one who has to do everything, but at least make it understandable. For example, ofr the Aranara world quests, the traveler has to be the one who does that because Nahida isn't capable of helping the aranara, and because the traveler is an adult who can still see the aranara, it makes him important to them.

But in Inazuma we're just doing Ei's dirty work, as if an omnipresent deity would want someone other than them to be supervising big problems.

My last point is that the archon quest doesn't feel like it's happening in Inazuma.

None of the problems in the archon quest are talked about in the world quests, it's barely mentioned in some small quests, and the archon quest is royally ignoring all the problems of the world quests. Sumeru doesn't do that for example : it talks about the decaying of pretty much everything in the archon quest AND the world quests, aranaras are showed in the archon quest, and really the archon quest goes to a lot of key points in sumeru, meanwhile for the archon quest in Inazuma it's only 4 different places, 6 if we count the comissions.

Inazuma have so many different species cohabiting together, has a lot of mysticals things happening everywhere, there are even cat who can talk and yet none of this magic is showed in the archon quest.

Honestly it just looks like a showcase of everything that Japan has to offer and that's it. Yes I see tanukis, I see sakura trees, i see the clothings and the buildings. But what else ? What is the core of anything that Inazuma has to offer ? When we take a look at every other region, we see that they at least tried to give them a proper identity with the inspiration material. Meanwhile Inazuma is just the inspirational material.

When they included nobility in Monstadt, they really did it. They showed how much they were accepted into present society (plot twist they aren't), their role in history, how they feel about a society where no one wants them anymore (with some clans who are okay, clashing with the Lawrence clan who aren't ready to admit 'defeat' yet), they included etiquette and made them active in society.

This just doesn't happen with the tanukis, the onis or the kitsunes. The onis have a bit more depth since they have Itto to develop this part, but really unless you go into the forest you will not encounter kitsunes or tanukis in inazuma.

My conclusion,

The main problem with Inazuma's archon quest is that they didn't give enough time. They didn't give enough time for the plot to unfold correctly, they didn't gave enough time to the worldbuilding, and dare I say Hoyoverse didn't gave enought time to the writers to be able to do anything more than the minimum. I have seen what these writers could do and it is so much worth it, but damn Inazuma is to me, something that Hoyoverse should be ashamed of in terms of storytelling.

And I feel like no one is talking about that. As of now the only things I found on the internet about it are slanders of some characters, or really just people who hate the whole "inspired by japan" thingy, and are just mad about that.

Hoyoverse is a big enough company to have decent storytelling, to give a decent amount of time for their writers to work, and so on and so forth.

To be honest I feel like that if you truly care about Japan and its culture, you should be mad at Inazuma for doing a poor job at representing it, but that's just my opinion.

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