#flashbacks to when this happened in genshin when i first got alhaitham

[psychopomparia]

He ate all my books

[kyogre-blue]

Hm...

Why didn’t we speak to Ayato or Kazuha when we explored Inazuma and see the consequences of Scara’s Irminsul erasure? 

Because they don’t want to acknowledge that Scaramouche did harm, especially to characters we might care about. 

imo, it’s that simple. It’s the same principle why we don’t talk to Ei about the civil war or Kazuha’s dead friend or anything else. She returns the Visions off screen, and after that, let’s talk to some dead NPCs from 500 years ago. 

Why didn’t we get more flashbacks of his life other than his betrayals and Dottore plotting Niwa’s death? Like, scenes from his time with the Fatui. Or some scenes where Dottore experiments on him, or how he interacts with some of the harbingers.

We can’t show the harbingers because they haven’t been finalized yet. Genshin isn’t working from some grand master plan, they don’t know what the harbingers they haven’t shown are going to be really like and they certainly don’t have models for them. (Yes, I know the trailer exists, but it’s very basic in regard to them, easy to retcon later.) 

Aside from that, because that would be emotionally-focused character writing, and Genshin isn’t particularly interested in that. It’s a single monologue over a 2D animation, or nothing. 

Was there any character in Genshin other than Scaramouche that got 3 patches worth of build-up and character development? 

This one is easy. First, Kazuha. Prelude, Archon quest, Irodori, GAA 2 + his story quest, there’s at least 4 patches in there. 

Second, indeed Xiao. Archon quest, story quest + Lantern Rite ‘21, then Perilous Trail, and now Lantern Rite ‘23 which has him follow up on the idea of needing to interact with more people. That’s 4 patches as well. 

Third, Albedo. First Dragonspine event + his story quest, GAA, second Dragonspine event, now also Windblume 2. His “arc” is handled so shoddily you might not even notice it’s there, but he’s supposed to have grown as a character (off screen). 

Also, Nahida, Dehya, Cyno, Alhaitham all qualify easily just by virtue of the Sumeru Archon quest needing 3 patches to release in full, but that’s more a technicality. 

Let’s say that the Archons were sort of given some kind of personal quests, but they seem rather filler to me rather than building any relevant character development. 

Ei chapter 1 I can concede, but Ei chapter 2 is one of the most important quests so far, if only because it introduces Ishtaroth, gives the Sakura tree backstory AND lifts Sakoku. It’s also massive development for Ei’s character. 

Yet Scaramouche wasn’t even archon yet still got a ton of screentime and build-up. He was a harbinger and the first out of known 4 (Childe, Signora, Scara, Dottore) that time on his character was spent on which wasn’t shoehorned into just artifacts.

I’m not sure how much this counts for, since Dottore is clearly set up to be dealt with later, so we’ve only really “dealt with” 3 Harbingers total. Scaramouche got more than Signora and Childe, sure. But Childe isn’t even out of the game yet, so... 

Scaramouche’s audio about Kazuha feels as though they might meet, as he seems to have a rather good opinion of Kazuha (if laughing uncontrollably can mean a good opinion). But that is definitely going to happen in some Inazuma festival event, and they’ll just exchange a few words after which Scaramouche will snicker silently “Oh so this is the almighty Kazuha, haha”. And that’s that.

tbh I have doubts Scaramouche will ever feature in Inazuma events, given that he’s functionally a Sumeru character now. He’s featuring in the upcoming 3.6 Sumeru event as a Darshan representative, so.... yeah. 

Hi! I just stumbled upon your tumblr!

I have this rather unpopular and controversial opinion about Scaramouche. I feel like 3.3 has pictured him way too dramatic and too much of a victim so that people will feel simpathy for him.

The 3.3 events don't make me feel sympathy for him because Scaramouche joined the fatui willingly based on the Husk of Opulent Dreams set.

The set also states that Scaramouche is not affected by rain, nor does he breathe, which made me think that he doesn't....exactly feel pain? Yet there's a ton of audio lines that hint how he went through a lot of torture back when Dottore experimented on him.

When Scaramouche joined the Fatui, he was seated as a Harbinger, aka a high diplomatic position, had his own subordinates, and probably had access to travelling and many other comodities. It's not like he was a simple labrat similar to Collei.

Collei was kept in a dark cell, treated like a dog, forced through injections to go through the human enhancing experiment, and hunted down like a rabid animal throughout the manga.

Scaramouche was being sent into the abyss constantly, from which he would return and then go directly to Dottore to patch him up. If he felt like he was suffering from those experiments, and disliked the fatui, why not escape or ....end himself through the abyss?

A lot of people kept blaming Dottore for his baggage but it seems to me that there were a lot more factors in play here. Scaramouche was damaged by Ei, then Dottore, then by human nature (with the sick kid dying), then ultimately, himself.

What's your take on how Scaramouche was handled in the 3.3 archon quest? Do you think that there was an obvious writing tactic in making Scaramouche symapthetic so as to influence players into pulling for him? Sorry if you have already talked about this and excuse me if I may rustle some feathers from what I have wrote, in case you're a Scaramouche fan.

Hi anon and welcome! And sorry for the belated response, life is. Yeah. Never fear, Genshin's writing is so Like That that I'm absolutely fine tearing even the characters I DO like to shreds, and Scaramouche is definitely not one of those.

Honestly, yeah? A LOT of weight is put on Dottore pushing Scaramouche down a bad path. Way too much, IMO - it's the realisation that Scaramouche was lied to that makes him decide to undo everything he did to the Raiden Gokaden, which, uh. Look, Dottore wasn't exactly holding a gun to his head forcing him to do any of that. It's not Dottore's fault Scaramouche went Full Revenge Quest 3000 on the ancestors of folks tangentially related to Niwa Hisahide like an insane person. And honestly, Genshin's usual brand of "you only did the wrong thing because you didn't know the truth of the matter!" aesop kinda stings here because, what? Scaramouche just eventually shifted his focus to Dottore, so what's the actual moral here? That if Niwa really had killed a subordinate as Dottore had claimed, Scaramouche would have had nothing to learn or grow from?

Because Scaramouche's drive for revenge isn't actually commented on, you know. Not really. The fact that he was still taking potshots at the - again, tangentially related - Raiden Gokaden centuries on isn't really the focus of any of this in his redemption arc, it's just window dressing for the domino effect of tragedy caused by Dottore tricking him and a convenient setpiece to demonstrate the limits of Irminsul's power. There isn't an aesop of learning to let go and moving on or heal from the past, like one might expect. He is not made to pay for his actions, nor is he ever confronted by anyone affected by what he did, nor is there a lesson to be learnt about the futility of revenge. Once Scaramouche is past his suicidal episode and has been successfully manipulated into working for a different Archon this time, he just redirects his rage and swears vengeance on the Fatui and Dottore instead! So what's the lesson, here? If you're gonna swear bloody vengeance, at least make sure it's on the right people?

Narratively, this is all very confusing and unsatisfying to me. You establish a character flaw that is not addressed, and instead set up a misconception mystery where both the misconception AND the truth are explained at roughly the same time so I can't even bathe in the horrific irony of the situation. Perhaps I wasn't meant to look at Scaramouche's insane revenge quest and think it mattered for his character, just like I wasn't supposed to look at Ei allowing Inazuma to get screwed over and think that reflected badly on her, but it was also the most concrete thing we had on him in terms of characterisation (that wasn't an item lore dump) for quite some time so, yeah, after the Iradori Festival I do feel kinda blueballed. I can't feel bad for a character like this. Late Sumeru was the first time he got real focus, and it was already telling me to forgive and feel bad for him.

And, like. Has Scaramouche GROWN as a person? It's not like he's actually been redeemed in any way that matters (to me), and I would hope that Genshin keeps that in mind moving forward (they do seem aware, at least), but it does feel like they couldn't see the forest for the trees when constructing his quest WRT his character. It seemed like the absolute focus was to pull as much attention away from "Scaramouche is a fucked up guy, trauma notwithstanding" and instead hone in on on a) "Irminsul sure is important!" and b) "Scaramouche is a poor little meow meow, he's so sad, please roll for him". Literally, he's depicted as a crying kitten, this quest does NOT want to grapple with the morality of Scaramouche's actions, just the lore surrounding why he did them. Forget anything he did in the Fatui, though. The propagation of Delusions in Watatsumi on behalf of the Vision Hunt Decree, who? What? Eh….

It also strikes me that "Scaramouche is a sad manipulated tortured (off-screen) baby, isn't it so nice he's away from that nasty (off-screen) situation so he can't get manipulated by Dottore (off-screen) anymore, isn't it so good he fixed the problem so that he never did it in the first place (off-screen)" is a HELLUVA lot easier to write than "Scaramouche is a petty, spiteful murderer that can't let go of the past and, as an immortal, that has terrifying repercussions for the descendants of those he despises; is redemption even possible for him what will happen when he meets these characters etcetcetc.", and Genshin always, ALWAYS takes the easy way out, doesn't it? It did with Kaeya and his connection with Khaen'riah. It did with Collei and her backstory with Dottore. Just don't worry about it, keep the actual problem as far away as possible, we'll solve this with the least amount of words and animation possible and preferably with the characters talking to each other for as little time as possible.

I cannot get over the fact that Scaramouche is explicitly a character that will continue taking revenge on Niwa's ancestors and the 5 clans from the Raiden Gokaden - You know, the 5 sword schools, descendants of whom still survive today, some of whom are playable - but instead they had him try to undo everything he did off-screen so he never has to interact with them in any serious capacity. It's so fucking lazy it's unbelievable. What was the Iradori Festival for if not setting up Kazuha and Scaramouche's meeting (it was establishing what happened to the Raiden Gokaden, Kazuha does not matter)? What was Kazuha's quest for if not establishing his moral compass in preparation for a similar situation in the future (it was discussing what happened at Tatarasuna Furnace, Kazuha doesn't matter)? In a real story where the characters matter, these things should have chained into a story and, I'm sorry, I know I'm beating a dead horse with Kazuha FUCKING Kaedehara's ridiculously misdirected character beats but 2022 was a rough year, okay. Genshin set out very explicit building blocks for a story that seemed SO obvious even a child could see what was going to happen and they couldn't even commit to it because, what? It was hard? They didn't realise they'd accidentally set up a character conflict? Were Scaramouche and Kazuha foils on purpose or was that just a cosmic fluke?

Kazuha wanted to understand his friend better - specifically through the lens of how he felt when he fought a god -, he has a shared backstory with a character that is established to still want revenge on his family, and that character becomes a god, but Kazuha is also established as a forgiving character that cares about the present, not the past. I'm not crazy, right? That seems like a pretty open and shut set-up for a future character conflict, right?!

i would like actual validation on this i think because i'm starting to go a little crazier every time i see someone talk about how good and profound scara's writing was, like it wasn't the laziest possible solution for a bunch of shit that happened off-screen where the writers didn't have to, like, actually write any of it

uhhhhh

um, tl;dr, i thought 3.3 and scaramouche's handling pretty much all game was pretty bad. i don't really like the way they resolved his character arc here, it seemed like they kind of missed the bigger picture because they wanted to talk about lore again and couldn't really correctly identify scaramouche's real character flaws. kind of reminds me of xiao's writing in the chasm in that way, actually. like, there's been an attempt, but i'm not sure they really understood the gravity of what they'd written, and it feels like they took the easiest way to resolve the issues they DID focus on, so...