#Genshin vedrfolnir

[flumpermergen]

[aroacenezhaanddainsleif]

Do you have any Vedrfolnir thoughts and/or headcanons? Especially about his relationship with Dainsleif? I find your takes really interesting so I'm curious about what you think.

ohoho thank you >:D

(come off anon i want to see who's enjoying my rambles /j)

and honestly, that's kind of up in the air until we get more about him (pushes all the random minor khaenri'ah npc ocs i've made with limited information behind me)

but so far my opinion is. negative. bitch sounds like a catholic preacher, and all the Sinners immediately get negative -500 points from me for just letting Khaenri'ah die. i don't care about your quest for self-enlightment, buddy!

but i do have my own thoughts as to how khaenri'ah-era dain was!!! a lot like he is now, with the same dry humor and ability to be stern about his duty, but a lot more light-hearted. i think his tendency to say randomly depressing/cryptic shit still existed then but was just more subdued. dain said weird shit and halfdan and the rest of the knights looked at him like "???"

as for vedrfolnir... well, like i said, he sounds way too preachery for my tastes, but he does intrigue me. he seems to predict the traveler's expected rise to godhood at the end of genshin, and it's possible he predicted his own brother's tragedy ("dain, what is that strand of blond hair to you? someone you must kill? or the object of your penitence?") him and dain being complete opposites in how much they care for people in general is just (chef's kiss)...

if i had to have headcanons about him... i think vedrfolnir would be a weaver/fiber artist bc i love fate weaving/sewing metaphors! he could make tapestries and hang out with the royal tailors and whatnot (totally not giving my "reincarnated khaenri'ahn royal tailor" oc reasons to have beef with him).

i'd imagine maybe part of dain's role as guard captain was trying to catch up to him- whether dain admired or had a positive relationship with his brother is to be seen. i'd imagine they either came from a noble family or were two orphan/nothing kids who rose to fame. i also can't see vedr being much older than dain, for some reason? like 4 years at max.

at the end of it, i don't really have any specific thoughts about dainsleif and vedrfolnir, but i DO have so many thoughts about how they juxtapose dain's relationship with the twins...

like. just the inherent loss and tragedy of it all!!! but also dain's hope that the twins' story can be better, because he doesn't know how to give up on hope or resilience despite all he says otherwise. he cares about them so much despite all his heartbreak, and he wants a better story for them...

i'm not going to be cruel and call vedr heartless without knowing much about him now (and he did help chlothar), but pitting him against "love and grief constantly exude from him" dainsleif, it does seem like dain got more of the compassion out of the two of them. but maybe this is vedr's fucked up way of helping people? like cough cough. hsr sunday

tldr: vedrfolnir seems very interesting to me but i think he doesn't deserve his brother

[periastra]

PFP MASKS »

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[priestessoffurina]

BROTHER?!!?

[cluescorner]

Whenever I stop paying attention to Genshin for like 3 seconds, they drop another insane sibling dynamic that makes me want to scream and cry and slam my head against a wall.

[torgawl]

started thinking about "the pale princess and the six pygmies" again and realised the five unloyal pygmies match the sinners of khaenri'ah pretty well.

when the pale princess from the moonlight forest and the prince from the kingdom of light enter the kingdom of pygmies, one pygmy (deformed pygmy) asks her help to save his five brothers who were trapped under different circumstances in exchange for their loyalty to her. and so starts the journey of saving each of the five pygmies.

after saving all the pygmies, she took them to the kingdom of light as part of her people and the pygmies started serving both the princess and the prince. "but they were still heinous creatures from the land of night, and corruption flowed in their veins. as the days traveling to the kingdom of light grew long and dangerous, the root of evil would again blossom in their hearts". the pygmies then started plotting revenge and ended up poisoning the prince.

one of the pygmies though (deformed pygmy), was still loyal to the princess and felt guilty for the plan and so he spirited the prince's body away from his wicked brethren and took it to where the princess was staying. what he didn't know was that the night mother had already found the princess, who she emprisoned. before collapsing, transforming into a pile of sludge and worms, and leaving the pygmy to grieve, she proclaimed one prophecy: "in thousands of years time, my greatest foe will descend. he wields a sword that heralds the dawn and wears armor that can reflect the shining sunlight. he shall destroy my kingdom and bring the prince back to life. the princess will then be free from her eternal torment. until then, i fear not a single soul in the land of might, for nothing will bring an end to my kingdom except for the catastrophe foretold by the prophecy. as for you, the treacherous slave that poisoned his master… fate shall see that you get what you deserve". at last, the pygmy hid the body in a tree hole and walked off alone into the night, into a self-imposed exile.

what specifically caught my attention was the motives each of the five unloyal pygmies gave to betray the prince, which seem to mirror the five sinners of khaenri'ah. and i guess it's also relevant to add that alberich in "the ring of the nibelung" was, in fact, ruler of the dwarves. in this case, pygmies as an allegorical parallel could very well make sense to refer to the people of khaenri'ah.

to make a few of the connections i made between the sinners and the pygmies, i went into speculation and theory territory, so take what i'm saying with a grain of salt. but going into each of them:

hroptatyr means 'sage' in old norse and was one of the many names that odin went by. the one entity in khaenri'ah, who happens to parallel odin and a sage, simultaneously, and who also made use of power from beyond beyond the skies is non other than king irmin. he became "indisposed" during the cataclysm and didn't defend his kingdom, which led to anfortas taking his place as regent. this description of events very much matches what dainsleif told us about the sinners not fullfiling their role and being unable to protect the kingdom. it also adds some context as to why the only justification for why irmin wasn't able to rule at the time of the cataclysm was because he was "indisposed". king irmin is also known to only have one eye so his respective pygmy being "blind" is very fitting.

dain also refers to himself and the sinners as "the six of us". if the loyal pygmy from the book represents dain, this would make a lot of sense. i forgot to add before but the line about corruption flowing through the pygmies veins caught my eye as well as we know the sinners shared this sinful power between them and in "a drunkard's tale", wine is used as a metaphor for the abyss. the sinners are what led to the creation of the abyss order.

from the very little we know about vedrfolnir, he's able to foresee the future. the foolish pygmy envies the smart. pierro is one of theorised identities for "the visionary". besides his title being "the jester" which is pretty much another variation for fool, he has an interesting quote in the 'pale flame' set: "since my level of learning could not compare with the sages, i failed to earn the favor of the previous ruler". it implies he used to crave knowledge, like the pygmy, and it mentions irmin, who he served while he was still in khaenri'ah. pierro is also the one behind the fatui's plans, he seems to always plan ahead and all his goals end up being fullfiled even after many complications. he also possesses great historical knowledge, both abouth the future and past, as he seems to know about arlecchino's history despite being part of the later eclipse dynasty.

surtalogi "the foul" is the one behind "foul's legacy", a combat technique used by childe. he has ties to the abyss and much like childe's combat-hungry spirit, the timid pygmy desired to battle the prince.

the shrunken pygmy is the most straightforward one. rhinedottir is a practitioner of the art of khemia, probably the most proefficient one too. like the pygmy, her focus is on creating life through alchemy.

as for rerir's connection to the carefree pygmy, i placed him by process of elimination. we know nothing about them so i don't think it's possible to make a very factual connection but the pygmy's sentiment of wanting to avenge his situation seems silimar to the feeling behind title "avenger of solnari". despite solnari not having a very clear origin, it either stems from: 'solari', related to the sun; or 'solunar', pertaining to the rising and setting times of the sun and moon, phases of the moon, eclipses, etc. the princess and the prince in the book represent the moon and sun, respectively. and there's also the ties to the eclipse dynasty in khaenri'ah.

another parallel between the sinners is the primordial one and the four shades. but rather than representing each other, they work as counterparts: hroptatyr vs primordial one, vedrfolnir vs istaroth, rhinedottir vs the shade of life, rerir vs the shade of death (?) and surtalogi vs the shade of void (?).

not sure if there's a connection between each of the sumeru akademiya's cardinal sins and the pygmies since they're also six but they seem like sins commited by khaenri'ah either way:

"revering gods without acts of devotion" caught my attention because khaenri'ah is supposed to be a godless nation yet we see hilichurls around the thousand wind temple while also having banners with istaroth's symbol in their camps, as if they followed istaroth somehow. i have my thoughts about some of the other sins (like the human evolution one), istaroth being connected to khaenri'ah, her theorised identity as a moon sister and her possible ties to this book as the pale princess but i think i'll leave that to another day. i'm very sure other people made the connection between the pygmies and the sinners too, i am probably very late to the party but i just wanted to add my two cents on it and make a post with my current ideas on the identities of hroptatyr and vderfolnir. don't trust me, though!! the pygmy isn't the only fool, i'm just having fun thinking these possibilities. thanks for reading, if you did ahah

edit (23/08/24): i never came back to this post but i realised the identities can be easier to infer without speculation, since the names are clearly the opposite of their desires. the pygmy who wanted to see makes sense to be vedrfolnir, the visionary - blind pygmy. the foolish pygmy, the one who wanted to become smart is obviously hroptatyr (and here pierro makes a lot more sense, i know some people theorised pierro to be hroptatyr). the pygmy who wanted courage makes sense to be the timid pygmy, possibly rerir. rhinedottir is without doubt the shrunken pygmy which leaves us with surtalogi being the carefree pygmy. the carefree pygmy much like the deformed pygmy don't really have any desires, but the title "the foul" contrasts carefree really well. wanted to reiterate this since people keep relogging this post. i didn't really go to deep into the sinners either though i will leave here that the name khaenri'ah is possibly derived from an arabic phrase meaning "betrayer of winds" (خائن رياح) and the pygmies betrayed the pale princess and the light prince (represents the sun and gold - end goal of magnum opus) in the book. which leads us to istaroth, "the thousand winds of time". i said i wasn't going to go into it but i cannot stop myself from saying this because i wasn't clear earlier and i feel like this is cool. okay, bye!!

[guujikaroko]

Bedtime Story was funny as fuck, because what do you mean both Lumine and Dainsleif have brothers who became the fantasy version of a terrorist? They can relate to having your sibling be a crime lord now?

[ishiin-esque]

Vedrfolnir, The Visionary

Wip :3

[incorrectkhaenriah]

Vedrfolnir: my brother has no idea I’m high.  Dainsleif: You’re high??? Vedrfolnir: Oh, I’m sorry.  Vedrfolnir, leaning over to Pierro: Dainsleif has no idea I’m high.

[sgrimp]

Sinners

[hearts401]

Stars

[blood-orange-juice]

Folks theorising how Vedrfolnir might be The Sinner from Caribert's quest.

"Which is why I'm pushing my personal analysis that he might be "The Visionary" Vedrfolnir.

Dain's conversation at the end of Caribert emphasised on the Sinner's "sense of sight", about how good he can "see" and that the passage of time is of no obstacle to him, these match the meaning of Visionary, as briefed by Mona.

Dain seems to know him enough that he immediately had an idea of who that was. According to Skirk, Vedrfolnir should be as well-known as Rhine and Surtalogi, and they all have Nordic names like many other Khaenriahns (with Rhine being a confirmed Khaenriahn). This means that Vedrfolnir is likely a Khaenriahn, too, which would explain how quickly Dain recognised his moniker. Him calling himself a Sinner may also be related to Rhine being called Great Sinner and how Surtalogi's "The Foul" title is "Knight of Extreme Evil" in CN, all of which carry some negative tones.

If Dain keeps his promise, we will learn about the Sinner's identity in the coming Dain's quest. So Vedrfolnir being briefly teased, yet still being intentionally kept a mystery a couple versions prior to the reveal would be an interesting foreshadowing"

Even if he's not I think that people mentioned by Skirk are the Khaenri'ahn sages Pierro badmouthes at every opportunity. I don't know why so many people tend to assume they are from Hexenzirkel.

(well, Gold *is* part of Hexenzirkel but that's about it)

[the-twilight-sword]

a lot of people were shocked to learn that dainsleif has/had a brother but those of us who know he's the bloodstained knight know his brother is the blind boy from viridescent venerer

[priestessoffurina]

So we finally have a name to the voice...

[dragonats]

I'm very sleep deprived

[natakage]

with all the discussion about the duality theme in genshin and how theres ALWAYS two of everything. are we rocking with "kaeya has a secret sibling" crack theory? my proof: dainslief and albedo are both khaenrian. both have secret brothers. coincidence? i think NOT