#necessary note that if other people like dan heng i will not attack them

[aha-chuu]

@sallyastral Dan Heng is an evil evil villain for MANY reasons and an important part of this is that sweet Bladie has had a tortured life of pain and suffering and hatred and so all reasonable people are obviously on his side. Dan Heng "claims" not to be Dan Feng (a main contributor to Bladie's trauma) which is a lie since he's had multiple dreams of his past lives and remembers facts from it. If he truly hasn't quite sussed everything out yet it's because he's not trying smh. Dan Heng has the additional crime of being more boring than his toxic predecessor Dan Feng which makes me sad because at least give me dramatic angsty yoai instead of Dan Heng refusing to participate like the idiot he is. Dan Heng also had dragon horns for about thirty minutes before reverting back to his boring design so obviously there is opportunities for him to be cool which he refuses at every turn. Somehow Dan Heng has been pardoned for all of the Dan Feng crimes while poor Sweet Bladie has not.

Overall we ofc all hate him equally and this is not bias from me nor is it slightly tainted by an inside joke of Dan Heng being very most evil and terrible HSR character.

[aha-chuu]

Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae’s Character Stories

So DHIL’s character stories leaked today and I wanted to discuss them/share them for anyone who hasn’t seen them. I’ll mainly be focusing on his Character Story III because it seems like the climax of Dan Feng’s arc. Also, I’ll be referring to DHIL as DF to denote his past self.

A note: there has been some talk of the English being mistranslated. Other languages refer to plurals on occasion, or don’t have as specific details. Keep that in mind (I’ll point it out when I find it necessary).

First, we have a proper look at the High Cloud Quintet (HCQ) in action from DF’s perspective with Character Story II:

This provides some interesting information. Firstly, DF self-describes as a “God”, with the military beneath him as “ants” - I don’t think I need to explore that inference for you. He sees all these mortals with “icy detachment” and later does not care that they get caught in the crossfire when he attacks the enemies. He does, however, take notice of the HCQ, implying he does care about them, or cares more about them, at least. The pilot is Baiheng, the white-haired swordswoman is Jingliu, the Lieutenant is Jing Yuan (he holds the “devastator glaive” we know he owned). We can assume that the “exceedingly arrogant craftsman” is Blade, since we know from his character stories that he used to be a craftsman -

(From Blade’s Character Story IV)

None of this is new information if you’ve been keeping track of leaks and in-game lore, but it certainly does portray DF as a much more aloof and uncaring character than I anticipated. It does make me wonder how much of DH’s separation from DF is genuinely being a new person, versus still being somewhat self-centred and wanting to avoid the sins of the past and the people that come along with them. It is still unclear, after all, exactly how DH and DF interact with one another in terms of identity. 

Then we move onto Character Story III, which appears to describe the point of no return for DF’s character. It begins as so:

(NOTE: in other languages the person “urging the dragon to commit to the decision” is not specified to be the craftsman. It would be out of character for Blade, considering the lore from the Wandering Cloud relic set: 

This says DF was the one to stick to the “plans” (whatever they were) and so it seems unlikely that Blade would be urging DF to commit to the plan.)

Anyway, back to the actual content of Character Story III. The sequence of events seems to be: DF and the craftsman go to the ruins, the craftsman is bloody and wounded but guarding DF and they are about to carry out some sort of plan. Because this is framed as DH’s dream of his past life, the note “whether to bury his old friend or to grant them new life — or, perhaps, those two actions were one and the same” could be out of sequence. Maybe DF and Blade went to the ruins with the intention to bury/revive an old friend, or perhaps that is DH’s memory of what ended up happening. Is the “old friend” Blade? Well... It’s unclear.

In this passage, Blade is clearly not on death’s door, despite being described as wounded, he is still walking around, carrying a sword. However, if DF is granting him immortality, he doesn’t have to be on death’s door - they might be carrying out a risky plan that will either kill him or extend his life. It could also be DH recalling what happens, so they don’t go to the ruins with the plan of Blade dying/being revived, but that’s what happens. Or, DF expects the fight (why else would he need a “guard”?) they’re possibly walking into to kill Blade and therefore is anticipating what he’ll do after.

I’m sorry I know that is confusing. The wording is not clear. There are, in fact, more options!

DF and Blade could be going to revive a different friend, not mentioned by name here. This idea of burying makes it seem unlikely to be Baiheng, as several theories suggest, because she appears later in this same Character Story:

Baiheng didn’t have much left to be buried. It’s not impossible that it’s her, however she doesn’t have a body left to revive. On the other hand, she is mentioned in this same section, so it’s sort of ~~~ who knows?

That extract comes right after a shift in the narrative:

“Returned” makes it seem like this whole Character Story is out of order. DF goes to the ruins with Blade, then it jumps back to a fight against a monster, where Baiheng dies. 

And that monster... well, here’s what Character Story III has to say about the fight with it:

“The moment before his sense of self disappeared”... WTF is that? It sort of seems like transforming into the dragon caused DF to be under the control of an outside force, not that this was his final moment as DF, even though it’s a bit weirdly worded. That would make sense as to why the “dragon heart” is personified and described as the one fighting, not just “the dragon” as DH refers to DF elsewhere. He then must have returned to himself in order for the rest of the events described to occur.

And because of course this is not explained, Character Story IIII jumps right into DF being already captured for his sins, and being tortured for information on the dragon heart,

Just fighting the dangerous monster would not constitute a crime, so the Character Stories just completely skip what happened between the ruins and the imprisonment. So, the actual important part of DF’s sins. 

So what is going on? This is the best order I can come up with:

1) DF knows the HCQ. They have a good time generally, occasionally fight big battles.

2) DF fights against an especially bad monster. He turns into a dragon to combat it.

3) The monster is somehow connected to “the god of life” and shows DF a vision during the fight. “The dragon heart” is ancient vidyardhara magic; a source of power that takes over DF and is struggling to defeat the monster.

4) Baiheng shows up and runs her starskiff through the monster, helping to defeat it and basically getting herself disintegrated in the process.

5)  Blade (the craftsman) likely also got injured during this fight, leading him to be injured in the next event.

5) DF and Blade head to some ruins, intending to revive Baiheng... Or bury the two strands of hair she has left. Possibly, DF is working from the vision he received, which was “unsettling and beautiful”, connected to the God of Life. 

6) Whatever they do in the ruins, Baiheng is not revived and Blade becomes immortal (this is the last opportunity for that to happen before DF is imprisoned and reborn). Either this was an accident, intended for Baiheng, or the procedure was dangerous and Blade got caught in the crossfire, leaving DF to pick who to save.

7) Also in the ruins, the procedure meant DF’s dragon heart went missing, which is why the Elder rebirth cycle is screwed up and why he was being tortured for information. 

8) Neither Blade nor Baiheng come up again. Baiheng is dead, Blade is missing... Along with the dragon heart. Possibly, the dragon heart is inside him and making him immortal, or all its power was used up to save him.

Bear in mind, this is speculation based on the evidence we have. My reading leaves Jing Yuan and Jingliu totally uninvolved, and still does not clarify what DF and Blade were intending to do - it’s a guess that it’s something to do with Baiheng that went wrong. Blade considers himself and DF to be sinners, so we can presume they were working together to commit that sin that DF is so hated for -

Anyway, now for some less story related stuff that intrigues me.

Blade, DH and DHIL all have the same framing for their character stories, not seen elsewhere for other characters. Every character story starts with a repeated sentence, the same one each time -

Blade:

Dan Heng:

(his is short lol)

Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae:

I think this matches throughout their stories in order to emphasise that Blade and DH/DF are stuck in the same narrative loop. DH is a “new dawn begins”, very obviously a new life and a fresh start are emphasised here. Then Blade “must have died”, being an end and a consequence. It’s literally the reverse of DH. DF/DHIL gets “returned to the insides of a Vidyadhara egg” - his is the space between death and life, as an egg is both the end of one existence and the birth of another. Together, all three make up stages of rebirth.

These stages might seem more connected to the vidyardhara (death - egg - life), however it also suits Blade. Either because it’s vidyardhara magic from the dragon heart that is causing his immortality, or because his “egg” stage does not exist. He cannot be at peace because he is unable to transition between life and death, making death his end - and yet, he doesn’t actually die.

Blade and DF also both experience torture as a punishment after whatever they did, DF at the hands of the other vidyardhara so they can get information, but Blade’s Character Story I details this:

Blade actually does not remember. Much like DH, he’s being punished for something he cannot recall. Just another connection between his story and DF and DH’s.

It does make me wonder; many people have spoken about how it is unfair for DH to be punished for DF’s crimes. Personally, because identity is so nuanced for the vidyardhara, I don’t think it is so simple as just “DH is a new person”. However, if DH should be forgiven because he lacks DF’s memories and therefore his responsibility, are we supposed to view Blade through the same lens? He cannot remember his own name, and here is mind is “empty” of the information his attacker is asking for. Yet, I would presume people would view this differently, as Blade’s body has not changed and his memories seem taken by Mara, not a cleansing forgiveness ritual.

Anyway, that was an exceedingly long post. I would be interested in other people’s interpretations of these Character Stories, because there really is a lot of vague information and unclear narrative. The whole framing of it being DH’s dreams means that a) the order of events could be totally messed up, and b) DH might not even have blank spots filled in. It does intrigue me that he has any memories, however, because it does weaken his defence of being separate from DF entirely.