#and how difficult he is to understand if u don't know hermanubis and hermes lore

[fizzyfishepicgaymer]

Sethno (Sethos & Cyno) relationship analysis pt. 2!

Comparing their visual designs

Who is Hermanubis and how did he shape the course of their lives?

Oathkeeper (Cyno's 2nd story quest) - Sethos's introduction as a playable character (NPC at the time of release) and his interactions with Cyno

Mirrors/parallels with each other

Sethos’s story and voicelines – finalising their relationship: who are Sethos and Cyno to each other and why are their lives so intertwined/their stories so inevitably interconnected?

Conclusion! (or more like a few last words from me)

PART 2 - Who is Hermanubis and how did he shape the course of their lives?

First of all, let’s think about this – who exactly is Hermanubis? In real life, Hermanubis is a Greco-Egyptian god composed of two deities – Hermes and Anubis, both of whom similarly were associated with the conduct of the souls of the dead into the afterlife. He is commonly represented with the head of a jackal (reminiscent of Anubis) and the body of a Greek deity. Hermanubis’s role as a deity is concerned with guiding the souls of the deceased from the earthly realm to the afterlife, and combined Hermes’s role as a messenger and conductor of souls into the underworld with Anubis’s role as the guardian of the dead.

Now, let’s talk about the 2 Gods separately!

Hermes is a Greek god associated with the protection of travellers, the cattle and also acts as a guide to the afterlife. He is considered one of the most clever and mischievous of the 12 Olympic gods and came to symbolise the crossing of boundaries as a guide between the two realms of “gods” and “humanity” due to his role as a messenger. He was known for his curiosity and his constant search for amusement and was considered to be somewhat of a trickster. He was credited with inventing fire, the alphabet, dice and musical instruments – in particular, the lyre. His Latin name – Mercury – is the name of the fastest planet to orbit the Sun.

Meanwhile, Anubis (also known as Inpu, Inpw or Anpu) is the Egyptian god of mummification, funerary rites, guardian of tombs and guide to the afterlife, as well as the patron god of lost souls and the helpless. He was essentially the protector of the dead who made sure that they received their rights in burial and stood with them after their death – and also in this role he was associated with “eternal justice”. The most popular depiction of Anubis is that of him standing or kneeling while holding the golden scales on which the heart of the soul was weighed against the white feather of truth. His name’s meaning was “to decay” – signifying his association with death, and he was also known as “the Ruler over the Nine Bows” which is a reference to the phrase used for traditional enemies of Egypt who were represented as nine captives bowing before the king. So… Sounds familiar? Cyno’s 4th ascension passive is called “Authority over the Nine Bows”!

So… what does that have to do with either of them? If u look closely, u can see many resemblances between Sethos and Hermes, and Cyno and Anubis respectively. In Sethos’s drip marketing post, it is said:

“Inexperienced travelers often find themselves trapped by the vast, boundless sea of sand. Were it not for the timely guidance of a kind soul, their journey of exploration might have come to an untimely end, cruelly cut short. Many of those who were lost and returned to their companions on the road all had the same name upon their lips: Sethos.”“As a desert-dweller, Sethos knows the paths between the various oases like the back of his hand, and his mastery of using techniques of navigation – such as using the sun’s position to calculate direction – runs even deeper. As a personal interest, Sethos enjoys traveling by foot between desert and rainforest, and the navigational skills he’s acquired are a product of his personal experiences doing so. As for being enthusiastic and talkative, by speaking with Eremites chance met on the road or listening to the fascinating anecdotes of hapless scholars rescued from swamp and marsh, not only can he broaden his knowledge and horizons, but also have a lot of fun. For Sethos, that is where the joy of the journey lies.”

As for Cyno, let’s take a look at his lore entry in the Genshin Wiki (since I couldn’t find much in his drop marketing post): 

“Notably, Cyno idolizes "justice" above all; though this predominantly manifests in his pursuit of suspected criminals, Cyno will also protect criminals from any danger that arises during their escape attempts until they can, in his view, be properly judged by the Akademiya. Although he is often viewed by the Akademiya's scholars as an obstacle or a threat to their research (complaints to which Cyno is indifferent), Cyno views his role as that of a protector, preventing seekers of knowledge from being led astray and becoming dangers to both themselves and the world.”

So… thinking about it, this would mean that essentially Sethos represents the “Hermes” part and Cyno represents the “Anubis” part of Hermanubis and that is kinda neat!

Now, in the Genshin universe - According to the Genshin Wiki, in the lore Hermanubis was a priest in the Great Red Sand during King Deshret’s reign and was known as “the greatest of all sages” due to his wisdom. He was also the founder of the original Temple of Silence in the long-gone ancient city of Tulaytullah. Although Hermanubis has now been long gone, fragments of his power, known as the Ba Fragments, still remain. 2 of those fragments were kept in the Temple of Silence and at the beginning they were planted into different people as a part of the experiment to bring back Hermanubis’s glory and find suitable vessels for his power, however the fragments rejected adult bodies (and many people likely died as a result of their bodies’ reaction to the fragment), so the ToS had to change their tactics and instead find 2 children that were most suitable to become Hermanubis’s vessels.

In the end, 2 children of the same age were chosen for this – Sethos and Cyno, with Sethos being a legitimate heir to the ToS and the adoptive grandson of Bamoun (so he was considered a part of the community at the temple) and Cyno being a child who was bought from his parents for a small sum of mora in order for the experiment to take place. After undergoing through the process of the first stage of the experiment, Sethos and Cyno had different reactions to the fragments, and Cyno’s reaction was remarked to be far more severe, and he ended up losing most of his memories of his early life and the time he spent at the temple, while Sethos only lost a portion of his memories.

In “Oathkeeper”, when talking to Tighnari, the Traveller and Paimon in the temple while discussing what deal they should accept with the ToS members, Cyno mentioned that as a child he suffered from constant headaches and fevers which were likely linked to the overbearing power of the Ba fragment, but despite that he had a strong will in his mind to keep going – which was likely a way of Hermanubis’s spirit to give him strength despite not being to communicate with him directly. Unfortunately as of now, not a lot is known about Sethos’s connection to Hermanubis or whether he attempted to connect with him at all like he did with Cyno (but I do hope that at some point Hoyo will expand on this, as well as Sethos’s life as a vessel prior to the Oathkeeper events because a lot has been left unclarified).