#edit: i mispelt hope as home!! i meant <<their only hope>>

[tweets-from-teyvat]

So I did the newest quest and I have some thoughts. I'm putting it under a break for ppl who don't want spoilers!

First of all, ok wow. I knew most of this going into it, but it was still a lot to take.

I do want to say that I trust the other sibling's judgment. I play as Aether so I'm going to refer to the other twin as Lumine. I trust Lumine, and I'm sure she's doing what she thinks is right.

She was probably helping and protecting Khaenri'ah in the very same way we're helping Mondstadt and, to a slightly lesser extent, Liyue. If Aether lost the battle and every single inhabitant of Mondstadt was corrupted by an opposing force, he would also do whatever he could to help and avenge his friends. Maybe he wouldn't see if it went too far, or maybe there would be no end of justice. I can understand the path Lumine took, and I can understand how she would feel seeing Aether defend those people. Even if it was hundreds of years later.

I don't think the twins feel the passage of time the same, since they're very likely immortal (this was actually not a surprise). And, if she has been primarily in the abyss, maybe she isn't aware of how much things have changed. Maybe it doesn't even matter, since her goal is and has been the archons that destroyed Khaenri'ah and they're still kicking.

On that note, I trust Venti. His whole entire thing is protecting people and their right to freedom. He doesn't believe in imposing his version of freedom onto others, and he is by and for humankind. Literally not that it matters, though, because it's unlikely that Venti was involved.

If the field tiller got to Old Mondstadt after Decarabian fell (and it had to have, otherwise it never would have gotten through the storm wall, it never would have bumped into Andrius, and the fireballs would have happened during, not post, tyrant), then that still doesn't tell us how long it wandered.

Khaenri'ah was probably pretty far away, it fully could have walked for hundreds of years. Venti could have still been an elemental spirit during this time. And if it didn't, and the timeline matched when Venti was made archon, then I still trust him. For the former reasons, and because he canonically slept for (I think) 1200 years. I'd bet anything that my dude was asleep during this time, and that that's a big part of the reason why people call him lazy and deadbeat.

Also, Venti doesn't like Zhongli. He calls him a blockhead and hasn't really had anything nice to say about him other than expressing a mild desire to go say hi. If I was a survivor of a war for freedom, and I knew a guy who helped flatten an entire kingdom just because, then I wouldn't have much nice to say either.

Venti also calls the pyro archon a "war mongerer". I'm not sure if this is meant to reference the original, or the current archon. And I'm also not sure when the original archon was replaced, so the current archon could have been involved with Khaenri'ah as well.

Anyway, I don't trust Zhongli. I like him, but we know his morals to be slightly corrupt. He makes decisions that don't benefit humans, he didn't help out with Osias, and he governed Liyue directly as an archon instead of indirectly like Venti. Morax is also known to be a less forgiving god than Barbatos, especially just looking at how he handles broken contracts.

That said, the game has already played this one out with us. I think the situation with Morax being accused of murdering the Salt Archon was meant to foreshadow this. He was innocent there, and the Salt archon was really killed by her own people as a mercy.

I'm not saying Khaenri'ah ended itself. It's a possibility but I dont know enough yet to say. What I am saying, however, is that Zhongli was innocent the last time. I wonder if he'll have a good explanation this time, too. I hope so.

I'm with the Traveler on this one. We need to hear what the archons have to say for themselves before making any finite judgment calls. If I had to guess, though, then I'd definitely say that I think Venti is innocent and I think that Zhongli regrets his actions deeply.