#sampo theory

[m-says-hi]

okay so i finished and processed the first day of the sampo event. and I have somethings to say.

I already talked about the words that flash buy when you create the product here

But the premise of this entire event feels... off to me. Sampo Koski, finding a way to make money... and yet he gives us all the cash? That doesn't feel like him. This entire thing screams scheme and it probably is. But it feels strangely out of character for him to do it so obvious with us

There's also a moment where he mentions the World's End Tavern. But not as if he's ever been there, but more... to make a point?

He uses it as an analogy. But he still talks about the tavern in an oddly intimate way for someone who, so far, seems to be pretending not to be a fool.

and then? If you talk to him afterwards? he says this

That is the most Masked Fools thing Sampo has ever said directly to the Trailblazer.

It's important to remember that even if we know Sampo is a Fool and the Trailblazer technically knows thanks to Masquerade Duet, it's unclear if he knows we know.

so it's strange to me that he's all of a sudden coming out here with Masked Fools like words and stories. It makes me wonder if it has anything to do with him getting his mask back.. since this is actually the first time he's talked to the trailblazer since then (as far as I'm aware?)

that's all I have but god i'm going insane and it's only the first day. and we're going to get six more days.

[0w0rlordsyaptopia]

Imagine being me, wanting to create a discussion about a character you like but your main blog randomly gets shadowbanned for no reason.

So now people can't see your reblogs of your own theory post.

People who reblog it dont have their reblogs show up on the tags either.

I WANT TO EAT DRYWALL, THIS IS SO ANNOYING.

Anyways... I just wanted to inform people that I am here until my main blog is fixed by support (hopefully).

I also recorded the original post and reblogs to put it up there.

Let's try to add on to this post instead so it isn't like:

[joceannatenaya]

Well, when passing the sampo event, I noticed a detail. At the end, he was talking about the miller, referring to himself. this is a reference to kalevala, because in the sampo epic itself it is melinitsa. It's kind of easy, don't you think? I still think he's Ilmarinen

[q-theeccentric]

I've got a theory about why Sampo is so particular about enemies to "watch the face".

And it's not because he's a narcissist.

Sure, he may talk positively about himself, with all that "I take care of my friends", "I say what I mean and I mean what I say", and "Tall, Blue, and Handsome" thing going on, but what if he wants his face to be kept in tact so that when he goes into disguises, he wouldn't be caught?

Because if Sampo got a scar on his face and dressed up as Brughel Poisson, people would immediately recognize that both persons have that wound on the exact same spot, notice their other similarities, and put two and two together.

Therefore, Sampo being concerned for his handsome face may not only be related to this self-praise thing of his (which may also be an act to keep up a certain persona, but that's a theory for another day), it may also be because he wants to keep both of his identites a secret.

[redr0sewrites]

unpopular opinion but i really dont think that sampo and itto are super similar? i get they have some similarities but sampo is more intelligent and definitely has more con-man trickster type tendencies, and while itto can be a joking person i dont think he has as much malicious intent as sampo, like i genuinely dont see itto scamming someone or manipulating someone 😭 and im not saying that sampo is totally evil either, he does have his good sides and hes more morally grey than anything, but i feel like sampo is more tricky and sly comedic relief while itto is more of the type of comedic relief where he himself is the joke if that makes sense? to put it as simply as possible:

itto has more dumb but endearing himbo energy and is more happy-go-lucky, and is more of the comedic relief in the sense that ur laughing at him and just how overall goofy he is

sampo is more intelligent and a trickster type comic relief cuz he is just kinda morally grey but heroically aligned and u never expect what hes going to do next

theyre both just silly little sillies <3

[ooka-fez]

I wanna share a theory about the silly blue haired scammer boi

So… I do believe he’s an Emanator of Aha! There’s proof of it too! So as some of you know Sampo doesn’t get a rating from the rating gun Herta has! Acheron and Jing Yuan don’t get one either and they’re Emanator's! The only thing to disprove this gun being able to spot Emanator's is the fact that Herta gets 4 points! We know Herta is an emanator! What I’m thinking is it’s rating her puppet and not Herta herself! Another thing I’ve noticed is that all the Emanator's we’ve seen have grey or white hair. This doesn’t count for Herta since she’s using a puppet and not her true self. Jing yuan has white hair, Acheron has grey streaks, phantylia‘s hair was even white at one point! Sampo has white tips on his hair. Another thing! WARNING FOR SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

In some leaks someone shared, Aha gets 6 lines in game… I feel like those lines could be long lines to confirm if sampo is an emanator or not! Yet something else I’ve noticed is that Sparkle when added into a team with sampo calls him The Fool. I think this could be a code name for emanator! Also how does Sampo know where we go all the time? Either he’s on a mission assigned by Aha where he has to watch the Trailblazers or maybe he wants to learn more about the Aeon they follow. Finally we know as a fact that we will get a five star sampo… he asked sparkle for his mask meaning he isn’t full powered! Anyway… there’s more but I’m almost at school so I’ll share it all when I’m back!

[spark-circuit]

hello Emanator!Sampo theory enjoyers. is this anything.

[honeyflashbang]

My theory on Sampo's true identity...

(Minor Spoilers for 2.4) (also, I’m no expert in… anything, really, but these are just my ramblings).

So, this has probably been mentioned before, but I have a teeny-tiny theory about Sampo’s true identity, and it relates to Finnish mythology.

So, “Sampo” in and of itself doesn’t have a set meaning, but it has its roots in Finnish mythology, particularly the “Kalevala” which is a 19th-century compilation of epic poetry. In it, a blacksmith god by the name of Seppo Ilmari(nen) forges the mythical device known as “The Sampo”. It’s never quite explained what The Sampo really is; some versions depict it as a mill, others as a cornucopia from which bountiful creations flow from, and some even have it as being a world tree/world pillar, so what The Sampo really is, isn’t entirely known. But, what is known, is that it brought riches and good fortune to its holder (again, the same as the cornucopia from Greek mythology).

But why am I mentioning all of this? Why bring up the Kalevala? It could be that Hoyo just chose the name “Sampo” for some flavour—befitting of a character who magics up relics from seemingly thin air and is trying to create riches—and yeah, it’s a possibility…

Until I saw these two screenshots from the 2.4 story:

You know what this means, right? 

Kalevala is a real planet in Hoyo’s Star Rail universe, and I find it awfully coincidental that they would use this name for a planet and not have it related to a certain blue haired conman, especially since The Sampo is such a pivotal element in the plot of the Kalevala—there is no way this is a coincidence (I refuse to believe it).

This leads me to believe that Kalevala is Sampo’s real home world, and is where he originates from.

Now, this is all well and good, knowing where “The Sampo” hails from, but I want to focus on its creator—Seppo Ilmari(nen)—and his parallels to a certain blue haired conman. For one, Ilmari(nen)’s name is quite interesting as the ‘Ilma’ part is Finnish for ‘air’ or ‘weather’, and as we know, Sampo’s element is that of ‘wind’ (And also the fact that Ilmari(nen) is credited as “Godlike smith-hero and creator of the sky”. I could go into a whole spiel about Ilmari(nen) and Qlipoth swinging their giant hammers in tandem together for all eternity (Go Sampard! Geppie is Qlipoth's true heir, you can't convince me otherwise!), but that’s for another conspiracy theory lol).

So, ‘Ilma’ means ‘air’, and Sampo wields ‘wind’.

Cool.

If the parallels ended there, I’d just say I was being crazy… but there’s more.

Sampo’s 4th (and arguably best) eidolon is called “The Deeper the Love, the Stronger the Hate”. Two out of his six eidolons refer to 'love', whilst the other 4 are to do with wealth and riches. The wealth and richest aspect leans towards The Sampo of mythology, whilst the ‘love’ aspect, well…

According to the story, Seppo Ilmari(nen) is the unluckiest bastard alive when it comes to love. Like, seriously. His whole storyline is that he can’t find a woman. For one, Seppo Ilmari(nen) is double crossed by his so called buddy, Väinämöinen, into creating The Sampo for the evil witch Louhi of Pohjola in exchange for her daughter’s hand in marriage (which, Ilmari didn’t even want in the beginning), but when the poor guy actually sees the daughter and falls in love with her (and subsequently creates the Sampo—after failing miserably a number of times, mind you—he creates a crossbow, a boat, a cow(wtf?) and a plough, all which are somehow either evil or flawed), she ups and just leaves him hanging! (in the original runes, however, he is successful in gaining a wife, as his ‘unlucky in love’ spiel was later added by Lönnrot in compiling the Kalevala).

As with any mythology and re-telling of it, there’s so many different versions of the same event. In “The Maiden of the North”, a 1898 opera written by Oskar Merikanto, both Ilmarinen and Väinämöinen compete for the chance to marry Louhi’s daughter, who is then mentioned as being “Ilmari(nen)’s first wife” and who later dies to Kullervo’s curse (apparently she was a bit of a bitch to Kullervo by taunting and tormenting the poor boy—who was a child slave mind you!). Distraught, Ilmari(nen) forges himself a wife of gold and silver, but he finds her to be too cold and callous—he forges her out of love but only finds hate—so he tries to gift her to Väinämöinen (who doesn’t want her either, lol), and suggests he cast her back into the furnace and to “forge from her a thousand trinkets”.

Here’s the accompanying poem:

Never, youths, however wretched,

Nor in future, upgrown heroes,

Whether you have large possessions,

Or are poor in your possessions,

In the course of all your lifetime,

While the golden moon is shining,

May you woo a golden woman,

Or distress yourselves for silver,

For the gleam of gold is freezing,

Only frost is breathed by silver.

It is apparently your standard Aesop’s fable of “money can’t buy happiness”, which is something else I see in our dear old Sampo Koski. During our time in Belobog, we see how different he acts with the Underworld and Overworlders. To the poor, he actually seems approachable (albeit a bit of a nuisance), going so far as to help the Underworlders (an example being the questline “Survival Wisdom” in which he and Peak set up a business together renting out his tools to help the miners make a decent wage to support their families). In contrast, we actively see Sampo being very hostile towards the Overworlders, scamming them and putting the nobles in their place or setting them up to be caught by the Silvermane Guards (an example being during the museum questline where you discover his identity as “Mr Cold Feet”. Sampo clearly states to who he thinks is his mark that ‘we are not friends’ in a very hostile manner, something which we’ve not seen from Sampo before as he is usually quite amicable). 

For all Sampo’s showboating and flashing his money around, he helps where it counts. He wants to make money, sure, but not at the detriment of the people who need it the most, only to those with excess.

Anyway, back to him being unlucky in love…

In another rune entitled “Kosinta”, Ilmari(nen) goes on a journey to compete for Hiisi’s daughter, and wins by completing various feats, one of them being “ploughing a field full of snakes”:

And as we know, Sampo is very heavy on the snake motifs (the head of the snake on his shoulders, the spine wrapped around him, the daggers are its fangs…etc.)

So that’s another interesting link between Seppo Ilmari(nen) and Sampo Koski.

So, why have I gone on this long winded tangent about Seppo Ilmari(nen) when I’m supposed to be talking about Sampo Koski?

Well, that’s because I think Sampo Koski’s real name is (or a variant of) Ilmarinen.

In the Hoyo universe, I believe Ilmarinen came from the planet Kalevala and ‘created’ the persona of Sampo Koski, much like how in the Kalevala, Seppo Ilmari(nen) forged The Sampo.

As I’ve listed above, there’s so many links between the two:

“Air” as a name and “Wind” as an element.

Seppo Ilmari(nen) ploughed a field of snakes to win Hiisi’s daughter’s hand in marriage, whilst Sampo Koski relies heavily on snake motifs for his attire.

Sampo’s two eidolon names that relate to love (which are completely different from the other 4 eidolon names), whilst Seppo Ilmari(nen) is known to be unlucky in love.

I’m pretty damn sure Sampo creates his own bombs and tinkers with the old relics to bring them back to life, whereas Seppo Ilmari(nen) is a smith who created the dome of the sky! They’re both artificers!

And now the revelation that a planet by the name of “Kalevala” exists is no mere coincidence.

So, either Sampo is Ilmari(nen) - or! - Sampo is a puppet (like Herta) created by someone called Ilmari(nen). 

(I would love if his 5* version is him with this name).

Right, I’m finished rambling. Gonna go huff some copium...

[shoezuki]

Thinkin bout Sampo Koski rn as like. His character n what we get of him in honkai star rail and he fucking. He confuses me like. There has to be So Much more to him like

The general vibes of him and especially how other characters treat him is that of comic relief, a punching bag, a goof, just a slick conman causing trouble. It's genuinely difficult NOT to insult him n treat him badly with dialogue options and any time he's even mentioned March 7th hisses at him. He's literally a cryptid in belobog. He's a joke.

But. But. There's his light cone. It makes me insane. It contradicts all of that.

In it he's competent. He's badass. He's omnipotent. He's able to somehow know a sniper from however far away is locked on him and address them specifically.

And even like... in the entire plot of jarilo-vi he's spoken of like he's not much. He's a 4 star character. But he's practically as present as bronya and seele and Gepard and his involvement in the story is ASTRONOMICAL. He has a part in every major event. He's the one who drags the Trailblazers and bronya into the Underworld. He's the one who takes you to svarog, to the overworld again. He gets Natasha and saves you from svarog. He's the first character you ever meet on jarilo.

And he seems to just vanish before you confront cocolia. But no. Sampo is the one who has the last word and wraps up the entire mission on jarilo-vi. He fucking breaks the forth wall. Jarilo-vi both begins and ends with Sampo.

He calls himself shadowy comic relief yet he seemingly orchestrated everything. What is he. What the fuck is he doing. What else is up with him and when will we get more of him. I want to bite into him and tear him apart.

[ricochetlovebombs]

The ask I received yesterday made me think of something about Sampo, along with some recent posts involving everything I'm about to point out.

I'm starting to wonder if Sampo isn't themed around love, but rather heartbreak.

We have his eidolon "The deeper the love, the stronger the hate"

Along with his line "...if the answer's no, then you'll break my heart."

His ultimate attack involves a heart shaped box with a bomb inside that explodes.

His snake design is of a dead one.

This one is a stretch, but the way his black outfit is designed in a kind of zigzag pattern reminds me visually of a broken heart. (edited this one in that I remembered after posting)

This could also be a duality, themed around both at the same time.

[m-says-hi]

Hello!

I have more sampo thoughts! Surprisingly, not about the recent event but an old event. Or not even the event itself, but something from after it

The memory bubble you get after Aetherium Wars.

Couple of things about memory bubbles before I bring up Sampo or this particular bubble’s contents. After some (admittedly brief) research on bubbles, I’ve learned they’re created by Memokeepers to preserve memories and are usually stolen from the original memory holder. In the game there are 21 memory bubbles. 20 of them belong to Herta and can be found around the Space Station. The last one is the one from after Aetherium Wars and is found on Jarilo VI.

I haven’t interacted with any of the memory bubbles myself, but I have read through all the dialogue and descriptions on the wiki. The 20 belonging to Herta all seem to put you in the pov of the memory holder. It tells it more like a story, kinda similar to Simulated Universe?

But the Aetherium Wars Bubbles only gives dialogue (very similar to Sampo’s character stories) making us more like an observer and not part of the memory. Unless we’re watching the memory of someone who was watching the conversation, but I feel like there’d be more description of the setting if that were the case.

I could go on about the content of the conversation, but I think we’ve all read through it multiple times. What really caught my attention was the beginning and end dialogue of the bubble.

(taken from the wiki. I haven’t done aetherium wars yet ;-;)

Four things stick out to me right away:

The game/The trailblazer’s thoughts notes this feels different

As I mentioned before, there is no description of the scenery showing up before you, but just two figures. My guess as to why is that this bubble wasn’t created by a stolen memory, but was made by the memory holder (or at least the memory holder was involved in the process). The memory holder being Sampo

2. There’s an implication that this bubble was left on purpose

This only adds to the point above. There’s a strong implication that Sampo left this for the Trailblazer to find. You also get an achievement for finding this bubble called Confessions of the Mask which. That kinda says it all.

But now I have two questions, the first being how? It's not said explicitly, but in a conversation with Herta it's implied that Memory Bubbles are only made by Memokeepers. So, if this was left by Sampo, either he got a memokeeper to help him (extremely possible) or he has the power to do it himself (extremely interesting)

My second question is why? 

Why would he tell us? Why is he telling us in this indirect way? My guess is it has something to do with his mask. The conversation in the bubble mentions Penacony and Sparkle. So,this was probably around the time Sampo started planning to go to Penacony to get his mask. I discussed this with a friend, and she suggested it might even be some sort of warning, which is why it’s done with a memory bubble. 

That sort of reminds me of the recent event, where Sampo spills a lot about the Fools and the Tavern, information that you would only really know as a Fool, but said it in a way that implied he wasn’t a fool. That he heard it from somewhere else, someone else, not that he knew it first hand. I wonder if his mask is sort of.. Making him unstable? (He grew increasingly dark every day) And the 7 day event was another warning. Warning of who he might become when the mask fully takes hold and a warning to not become like him

3. The game/the Trailblazer’s thought recognizes that there are multiple mysterious things about Sampo

Maybe this isn’t as important as I’m making it out to be. After all, we all know something is very Off about Sampo. But the Trailblazer recognizing it feels significant to me. It feels like further confirmation that eventually we will unravel these mysteries. Eventually.

4. “When talking to one who wears a mask, always keep your wits about you.”

This. THIS. This statement has been driving me mad since I first saw it. When I read those words I immediately thought of the translated statement from Topaz’s trailer:

“One who is unaccountably solicitous is hiding evil intentions”

(if you have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s one of my first posts)

The statements are not the same. But they feel so strongly similar, like they go hand in hand. Both are warnings. Both tell you to be careful about people who are not how they appear, people with masks and people who are falsely sincere. Both are talking about Sampo. Looking into this made me realize just how many times we've been warned about Sampo. Half of those times being Sampo himself

Something about it just makes my brain light up with possibilities and I feel like I keep pushing the statements together waiting for something to make sense and explain everything else, but I’ve yet to figure it out. So I’m left here just kind of going insane

But that’s all I have for now! Maybe someone else will have something

[flightofthejackdaw]

2.2 Spoilers!:

Boothill mentioning that emanators hide their identities, and some may turn their backs on the Aeon they’re supposed to follow if found out (or literally DESTROY everything and everyone). Got me thinking about a certain blue haired boy

Especially since right after saying that, Boothill states that he met a eminatior of Elation who seemed completely normal, and just like the rest of the clowns (masked fools)

It’s really adding to the emanator Sampo theory, also adding the idea that Sampo for some reason put his mask down giving up Elation, turning to Nihility. But is now going back to playing the fool and continuing his fun

[joceannatenaya]

sketch…

I think so much about his childhood.

My head hurts from thinking (joke🥹🙏🏻)

[q-theeccentric]

i know aventurine has taken over this blog

BUT we can't forget about what sparkle said about sampo needing his fool's mask.

something coming to belobog?? bigger than the fragmentum disasters?? are they bigger because sampo needs his mask ??? chat is this real ????

[feroluce]

I've only recently started having my own thoughts about Emanator!Sampo and I think my favorite version of this is that he is technically an Emanator, it's just that he doesn't talk about it because Aha is a dick who only blesses people that don't want it and Sampo hates it here dkjxkdkdck

Aha blessed the Mourning Actors! A whole faction of people who have specifically made it their life's mission to resist Elation! THEY made a literal worm THEIR Emanator just to see if it would be accepted into the Genius Society! And when it wasn't, Aha just as easily killed it and tossed it aside! So I feel like there is a good possibility that Aha looked down at Sampo, this little oddball who doesn't seem to even like Epsilon or a lot of the Masked Fools and was like.

Hey.

You know what would be really really funny.

And I feel like being an Emanator wouldn't even be a plus for Sampo, because of how he operates. Sampo excels at blending in; he managed to smuggle himself onto a planet

that had been isolated for 700 years,

with only one (1) single city on it,

and going even further, he snuck himself into the Underground,

where the population is even more sparse,

and STILL. Not a single accusation of him being an alien! Not even after the Astral Express lands and proves that interstellar space travel is possible! Sampo is so thoroughly ingrained into Belobog that yeah, some people admit they don't know his origins, but none of it ever comes with the question of whether he actually is a Belobog native or not. Sampo knows exactly how to blend himself into his surroundings in the most subtle way possible. And being an Emanator, something far more powerful than any normal human or Pathstrider could ever hope to be, would only throw in a massive extra variable for him. Sampo would have to be so so careful to keep a lid on his Emanator traits, to keep up the appearance of being totally normal and average at all times. It doesn't help him at all.

And this part is pure indulgence, but I love taking Aha's closeness with mortals, and THEIR tendency to take human form, and twisting it into a case of THEM using Sampo as a vessel.

I want Aha to look at Sampo the same way all of us look at Sampo. A chew toy. A plaything. Something to shove through the meat grinder. Aha thinks Sampo is hilarious and a funny, silly little guy, and THEY want to put him in Situations just to see what he does. Sampo is not a fan.

This though, this is what makes Sampo so wildly entertaining as a vessel. Because Aha knows that Sampo does not want to be a vessel, does not even want to be an Emanator, and THEY find it SO much fun to watch the mental gymnastics he has to pull to convince himself he's ok with it, this is fine actually, because he's not exactly about to tell off a literal god. He doesn't feel like getting a smiting today, please and thank you.

Because squeezing yourself into a human vessel is so different than merely adopting a human disguise, there's already a human soul in there, it's kind of a tight fit. If Sampo doesn't make room, doesn't all but dissociate right out of his own body, it could cause. Consequences.

And so, Aha always gives a warning, just to watch him squirm.

It begins with the sound of bells.

Just little ones, at first. Small, clinking little sounds that could even be considered nice. Something almost gentle, like a wind chime in a pleasant breeze on a warm day. This is the signal for the countdown.

Sampo breathes in, breathes out. Makes himself as small as possible within his own body.

The bells rise and multiply, tinkling wind chimes give way to sleigh bells, to shopkeepers bells, the sound of something inevitable approaching, something entering.

Sampo breathes in, breathes out. Dilutes himself, weaker and weaker concentrations.

The bells rise and rise, multiply and multiply, celebration and tragedy resonating in the sound of church bells, ringing bright and loud, the sounds of weddings and funerals both the same.

Sampo breathes in, breathes out. Becomes like smoke, like vapor. Hollows himself out.

Empty, empty, empty until he echoes, like a bell, like something with the sole purpose of being shaken and rattled around, a thing to be struck, the sounds jarring and punched out and gasping and piercing the air, the lung, the eardrum.

Sampo breathes in.

Beaten he rings, bashed in he sings.

Aha breathes out.

[softringing]

i think that'd be really COOL I would love seeing sampo's hair go fully white/grey, plus we know feixioa is also an emanator of the hunt and in one of her flashbacks we see her hair color being blue-ish but the present feixio's hair is white with those blue tints

But there's lots of gaps to this theory, BC we haven't really seen enough emanators to confirm this I mean Luocha could be an emanator of abundance from all we know BC of the rating gun so can march but there's no tint of white EUGHH

Still love this theory and hope it's canon

so my theory might be true

my theory about all emanators having grey or white hair might be true… heres a screenshot from the latest Honkai stream! Spoilers for those who haven’t watched the stream

This might be Herta’s true form! And look at her hair! Its grey! So my theory is most likely true! Meaning theres a chance Sampo is an emanator!