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torgawl · 8 months ago

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diluc mentioned in the lore of "wings of concealing snow", nice!!

you know, i wonder if the owls in this story are connected to the underground intelligence network that contacted diluc in snezhenaya. his character story definitely refers to the "observer" as a third-party entity, considering diluc's distaste for the fatui, the abyss order and the knights of favonious we can rule all those options out of the way. the way they don't go into detail about it or even go as far as saying its name, mentioning how secretive they are, i assume they're not a group we've met/are aware as of yet.

going back to "wings of concealing snow" though, the story is very clearly about sal vindagnyr. the description separates the population, if i can call it that, in two different groups: falcons and owls. owls are described almost as if they were councelors while falcons are described as ambitious, with the desire to rule the skies.

from the information we have of sal vindagnyr, we know there's 3 important figures with higher hierarchy: the princess (prophetess and highly connected to the frostbearing tree), the scribe and the priest-king (the princess' 'father').

the princess was able to foresee the future - for example, she foretold what would much later happen with durin - and painted the murals we can still see in dragonspine. she was specifically called a lovely maiden and described as having beauty and skill that was thought to be as eternal and pure as moonlight. it's also relevant to point out the frostbearing tree was very likely an irminsul tree. if we know anything about symbolism in genshin is that moonlight, knowledge and the ability to foresee the future are all key-words that directly point to seelies. and we can parallel this princess directly to someone like sibylla, mentioned in remuria as advisor of god-king remus, who appears as a golden bee and who protected the irminsul where an ancient civilization was located in the abyssal depths. the form of these remuria bees are very akin to what seelies look like and there's also heavy implications she was a seelie. it would make sense that someone overlooking the irminsul tree in ancient dragonspine was also a seelie, or at least related to one somehow.

as for the concept of priest-kings, they're not something exclusive to sal vindagnyr. we've seen the exact same depictions of crowned individuals guiding populations in tsurumi island and the concept was also talked about in the "guilded dreams" artifact set (the set focuses on king deshret and a sumeru desert civilization).

i think it's not that crazy to think ancient civilizations had similar social foundations. the way seelies cohabited with humans, also learned from the chasm lore, implies they guided humanity in some way as divine envoys (words used in "flower of paradise lost", artifact set about nabu malikata). or, more specifically, advised civilizations' gods/kings.

the wings' description also goes on to talk about "birds of the land of the wind" and say the owls gained dominion in the absence of light while fledgeling birds stayed in their nests. this happened after the nail was casted upon sal vindagnyr and the darkness drowned the land (likely the abyss, in reference to forbidden knowledge). if owls and falcons are adult birds in this story, maybe the fledgelings refer to the basis of what would later become the mondstadt civilization. the line "the nestlings would never know who it was who saved them" followed by "the dragon ... would also be forgotten" imply the saviour of the people was someone who ended up being forgotten. as far as i'm aware, there's only one being who was worshipped in mondstadt and ancient civilizations like the one in enkanomiya who ended up forgotten, istaroth. so, there's that!! i also thought it was interesting that the owls that "once shone brightly in the darkness" would also end up with the same fate, although there's no mention they ever disappeared, which brings me to the next point.

"a flash of red flames would reveal his silhouette for but a moment in the darkness of the night, before he disappeared in an instant" sounds a lot like what the owls were like to the people of mondstadt. diluc also only started his darknight hero endeavours after he returned from snezhenaya, after entering the secret organisation and rising quickly in its ranks. and guess who, in the manga, wears an owl mask? an owl is also diluc's constellation and these are diluc and kaeya's respective voicelines in the section "interesting things":

coincidence that kaeya associated the owl with dragonspine? moreso, some of diluc's voicelines are very intent on judgement/punishment: "time for — retribution!" or even "lay waste to the wicked!" which parallels fischl's "no rest for the wicked...". fischl has also said the retribution voiceline in "summertime odyssey". these are interesting parallels because fischl from "the legend of the shattered halberd" and "flowers for princess fischl" has a red eye - auge de der verurteilung or eye of judgment/condemnation - and her mission is to observe and weave the threads of fate. fischl not only parallels kaeya but also king irmin, though it's still interesting this theme is also connected to diluc. but how does this connect to dragonspine? this is the ending line in the description of "wings of concealing snow".

whatever that "greater trial" is, it also implies some sort of payback towards celestia and/or the abyss. as for who are the "we", if not the seelies who got basically wiped out from teyvat, i can only think of the owls.

at last, i want to leave here the messages found in the scribe's box found in dragonspine that clearly belonged to the scribe in sal vindagnyr:

the first message shows resentment towards the skies (it almost sounds like tsaritsa's desire to burn the old world described in the cryo gemstone). the second message refers dust and wind which are very suspicious words considering they can be connected to concepts like alchemy, khaenri'ah and either the anemo god or the god of time. it also shows intent in finding imunlaukr (the hero from another land that left sal vindagnyr to fight what i assume was the abyss during the conflict). the fourth message directly states this person was the last to survive and that it made no more sense to keep watch (of what? the fledglings like the owls?), probably meaning this person left dragonspine. and, in the last message it directly references khaenri'ah's establishment and early days. could this person have fled to somewhere outside of teyvat, away from the gods, like khaenri'ah? this really isn't that surprising when we have in account sal vindagnyr and khaenri'ah share the same written latin-based language.

i actually went a bit more in depth about sal vindagnyr and imunlaukr on this twitter thread, if anyone cares, but i'm going to include here part of it. the name imunlaukr means "sword", being a direct reference to the god ullr - step-son of thor and the son of lady sif. sif was famous for her beauty and unique golden hair, said to be inherited by her children. genshin's imunlaukr went on to pass his name on to a clan in mondstadt that was known for raising brave and gifted warriors that fought hard and died young. the clan adopted their progenitor's viewpoint that combat was merely for the entertainment of the gods and as such would fight anyone and anything for the sake of fighting, as well as enact war tales. do you know who else is a sword, happens to be blonde and has connections to khaenri'ah? dainsleif, which translates to dáinn's heirloom. dáinn (or dain) means 'dead' and he's a character in norse mythology. most of the tales relating to him depict him as a dwarf or king of elves. hehe, break time to introduce fun facts about nibelung. the term in legend has usually referred to either a group of humans or a group of dwarves but the name in genshin is likely derived from richard wagner's four-part opera der ring des nibelungen "the ring of the nibelung", in which the dwarf (or nibelung) alberich creates a ring capable of controlling the world, using gold he stole from the rhinemaidens (or rheintöchter "rhine-daughters"). the conflict that arises over the ownership of this ring eventually leads to the destruction of the gods and their home. continuing with dainsleif, in myhtology, the sword is involved in a so-called eternal battle between kings, initiated by one man falling in love with and running off with another's daughter. dainsleif was forged by the dwarves whose god/king was alberich, and the sword was cursed with insatiable bloodlust and would not be able to be sheathed until it had killed and any wound caused by the sword would never be able to heal. maybe the connection between imunlaukr and dainsleif is a stretch - timewise, it wouldn't really make sense as dain seems to be exclusively from the eclipse dynasty but khaenri'ah was somewhat recent in the scribe's notes - but i really don't think the connection between khaenri'ah and sal vindagnyr is.

furthermore, dainsleif is called "bough keeper", a bough being a branch of a tree - like the irminsul. if you notice his design, one of his arms has blue lines akin to those in irminsul trees. blue lines also appear in his and pierro's mask. the introduction to his character is written by a self-proclaimed prophet and mentions the desire to see the skies burning - like the message in the scribe's box - as well as desire for atonement of bygone mistakes and mentions of alchemy (gold being the end goal as it's related to reaching the magnum opus and the philosopher's stone - elixir of life and immortality). the symbol the angel figure in dragonspine's mural is handing to the humans resembles a circumpoint, that can represent gold. it's also something that appears associated with rhinedottir in one of the videos about the hexenzirkel (which makes sense as she's such a proeminent figure related to the art of khemia and khaenri'ah, very much associated with the cataclysm).

not sure what the conclusion of all of this is but i don't think it's impossible this underground intelligence network and the owls might be something connected, directly or indirectly, to the person from sal vindagnyr that might have fled dragonspine all those years ago or even khaenri'ah. could diluc and kaeya work more closely together than we think? considering the third-party observer that rescued diluc is said to be from the north when that supposedly happened in snezhenaya, does this mean this north they speak of is beyond the land of the tsaritsa?

note: i wanted to make some type of connection to the book "anecdota septentrionalis" or anecdotes of the north, as the book not only talks about snezhenaya but also tells a very fantastical and non-sensical story that includes other nations but i understood very much zero about it other than the fact that north from where the major plot takes place there's a tall wall in the middle of the sea stretching into the sky with countless densely packed human figures suspended "and though they had neither bodies nor muscles, their forms could clearly be seen". whatever that means, so i can't really make any inference to what it beyond snezhenaya.

note 2: forgot to mention but owls besides being birds associated with wisdom, in sumerian, akkadian, and babylonian culture, are also associated with lilith. she was theorized to be the first wife of adam and is cited as having been "banished" from the garden of eden. it's just a fun fact if we think of seelies, divine envoys who are symbols of wisdom and guidance, that got punished by the heavens after their ancestor married a traveler from afar.

#idk if this is even a theory but i'm so curious about these owls and sal vindagnyr!!!#and also istaroth supposedly saving the people like. that idea is compelling and i do wonder what happened that made people forget her.#it very much fits her character too as enkanomiya people considered her to be the only one who didn't abandon them too 🤔#anyways can't shut up about genshin or my fav boys kaeya and diluc pretend to be surprised 😂#if anyone reads this sorry my brain is a mess you're awesome and i hope you have a good day #diluc #kaeya #dainsleif #genshin impact #genshin thoughts

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