#now that windblume is out i'm here to preach about hexenzirkel + venti long-time alliance

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recontextualizing durin

I'm going through genshin lore again and my god. albedo and durin both love rhinedottir SO much. albedo can't bring himself to call alice "mother" because rhinedottir means so much to him. durin, even in death, thinks fondly of the mother that birthed it.

RIP dorian. I don't think rhinedottir knew you're still around but your resentment is valid though.

also: durin just wants to make friends with mondstadt!! I mean, we already knew this from v1.2, but now with the windblume event, I suspect venti knew about durin's innocent heart and that's why he and dvalin buried durin in snow and didn't just kill it. durin's heart still beats if you visit the skeleton! durin did cause destruction, but seems to not be conscious of the consequences of its actions.

I'm beginning to think rhine sent durin to mondstadt so venti could take care of it, instead of leaving its fate to celestia. venti and the hexenzirkel seem to be close allies ("sometimes we all need to vent our troubles to the wind"). three of the witches' successors were sent to stay in mondstadt. and venti has access to their tea party locations, the GAA, etc. I think venti has had a long partnership of taking care of, perhaps even covering up, the witches' troubles.

this actually changes a lot! if venti knew durin was from rhinedottir, whom alice thinks of fondly (and we know venti is at least close to alice), then was he sympathetic to durin? in fact, what does he think of the whole cataclysm, of the "great sinner" rhinedottir?

we know venti is not a fan of celestia. we know the archons except greater lord rukkhadevata were supposedly sent to khaenri'ah, but also they each fought off abyssal monsters in their own regions. how much of this was rhinedottir's fault, how much of this did venti simply defend against, and how much did he really know intimately about and covered up (or at least, refused to acknowledge to others)?

from breeze amidst the forest, we know that mondstadt doesn't actually know how the battle with durin ended. they only know the results.

The result was clear — Durin's remains still lie atop the snowy peaks to the south of Mondstadt — but the story of how the battle ended was lost in time. It is said that Dvalin ripped out Durin's throat, and together they fell from the sky. Durin's body sunk into the snow while Dvalin was summoned by the Anemo Archon and fell into a slumber.