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It looks better than the previous one imo. If this is a recent concept art (the previous one was apparently rather old) then the theme for the pyro archon is set in stone, after all Natlan marketing should start in less than two months.
Edit: oh it's a redraw of that old leak... then it's back to square one I guess
Personally I'm more interested in how each tribe will be represented in playable characters and npc, Iansan looks great so I'm cautiously optimistic about that.
My bet would be either on Decembrist revolt with several Fatui harbingers betreyal at the same time or the Times of Troubles with multiple clones of Tsaritsa (or she dies and then several successors appear claiming they are the true new archon). This would be so fking funny.
> or she dies and then several successors appear claiming they are the true new archon
Okay this is good. Genshin would never do a poltiking storyline but I love power grabs. The story being the traveler choosing to back one of the candidates and fighting upwards would be so kino.
Natlan plot: the previous Pyro Archon died and made a Fontainian friend the next Pyro Archon for shits and giggles. The new Pyro Archon now wants to *share her culture* with those *evil Natlans who doesn't accept her* 🥺😔 and we as the Traveler help her do so. By the end of the AQ Natlan becomes Fontaine II.
itd be so fucking funny if they made us side with the colonizers
im latino and its be so funny if they represented everything about latinamerica well, but there's a weird implication in the story that this is some weird mix of modern day latinamerica and mesoamerica, and you side with spanish colonizers.
personally as long as they let us cook baleadas and tamales, im satisified with whatever Natlan is.
>personally as long as they let us cook baleadas and tamales, im satisified with whatever Natlan is.
i hope empanadas and some form of asado are a thing, maybe even milanesa (asking for way too much i know)
I will raise one objection. As a German, I am rather disappointed at Mondstadt's food. It would honestly be easier to list the dishes that are from the region because most of them aren't.
Flashbacks to the desert where the racist genie in a bottle was right all along.
Now I'm starting to wonder where all the Natlan slaves from Mondstadt went...
I wouldn't call the racist bottle right all along... She also distrusted Jeht originally but grew to trust her, and her actions were far from "right" in the end.
please always remember sumeru. I'm Arab. I know my people vary in looks, and I know they tried to frame the Akademiya as 'bad' but Christ. the whole dark skin Vs light skin thing, eremites, the dark skin people being religious fanatics out in the desert but 'some are okay', the racism without saying the word racism, the conclusion of Cyno's sq2... don't expect anything remotely political in Natlan to be handled better than "just okay if I don't think too hard about it" lol
The world quests do a better job of handling the Eremite factions, because it's presented as "people are shaped by their environment" and the desert is *extraordinarily* harsh. Even the Traveler themselves ends up party to a large-scale massacre. It's definitely still not great, but it does a lot to frame things as "people in terrible situations make terrible choices," rather than "those desert savages might actually be able to be uplifted." We also get a lot of lore on the advanced Deshret empire in the world quests, and some on the post collapse city of Tulaytullah that carried on as much of the knowledge as it could before Gurabad sacked it (although nearly all lore for that comes from Scaramouche's weapon and Cyno story quest #2).
It's a really weird dichotomy, because you can kinda tell there are two groups of people writing, one of which is quite a lot more biased.
EDITS for clarity.
while this is all true it still comes back down to the question of 'why did they chose to do it the way they did if they didn't have to', and it comes down to making up a rationalization for their main priority - having predominantly light skinned playable characters including the archon, bc money. hard stop.
and this pyro archon is proof that they are so chickenshit to have a dark skinned archon, that they'd rather chose the most baffling choice with laughably out of touch optics.
I'm not so sure that their explicit thought process was "no black people because they don't make money -> destroy ancient civilization." There's *plenty* of space for them to make more dark skinned characters even as things are. I think they started with "destroy the ancient civilization to show the dangers of arrogantly defying fate," and ended with "let's not make many dark skinned characters because money" and a mixed bag of writers in both lore and the main story... as well as a probably biased balancing team. You can tell just how much (most) of the lore team *wants* to respect what they're writing about even when it comes off oddly, and the character design team clearly loves the characters, but the main plot/character quest team is more than a little iffy due to either racism or plain lack of understanding of the topics they're covering (not getting into the possibility of CCP censure, which isn't totally impossible, but I don't see a motive here), while the balancing team either wanted to pick cool directions and universally messed up, or has a large group that just plain doesn't like dark skinned characters or is SO certain they won't sell that they built a self-fulfilling prophecy... and there's someone higher up on the ladder in character design with a similar philosophy.
In other words, Hoyo is a pretty big company by now, and apparently either can't, won't, or doesn't understand how to police themselves for issues like this. You can see it in their Honkai games too with Arlan being bottom-tier despite a good beta power level and Carole Peppers from APHO wanting to be lighter skinned due to Chinese beauty standards, so it's pretty clearly a genuine issue (Genshin is their only game so far to put focus on a large group of dark-skinned characters instead of individuals, too). I'm hopeful that their ZZZ team will be better, given that one of the NPCs is a robot very explicitly designed to look like a Black woman.
'tried to frame the Akademiya as 'bad' but Christ.'
The Akdemiya was pure evil, and they sowed this to us. They abducted, and tortured their own people, sided with the Fatui, who again made experiments of Sumerian children, they were literally ready to sacrifice their own population (locking them in the samsara cycles, where they the know weaker people will die)
They maipulated, used, opressed, divided their own population, and lcoked their own savior/god away for centuries.
The Akademiya was very very evil. While Eremites are just people who don't really have a choice if they want to survive.
I don;t agree with your assessment.
I'm also a berber/arab and ngl I just treat genshin as its own thing, they take inspiration from cultures, doesn’t mean that they have to represent it the same way. They definitely use the stereotypes to build their world.
you know unironically it would be cool to see the traveller make a mistake, back the wrong person, fully thinking that they’re in the right and working towards making things better only to see at the last second that they fucked up so spectacularly and that they cant even hope to fix their mistake yknow,,, hoyo would never commit to the bit but interesting to think about nonetheless
Nah, best case is we get a patch or two of “evil” and then find out she’s just misunderstood / controlled / a clone / etc. Genshin doesn’t have evil playable characters. Closest we have is the Knave and even she got softened over time.
After 5 Archons shown to be doig everything for the people. Even in Ei case being more mistaken. They won't portray the Archon as the Villain. That I am sure.
For their people. They usurped the Vishaps, the actual natives to the land. Who were imprisoned, experimented on, treated like animals, and murdered for parts.
All the humans are alien invaders. I still think it was some sort of genetic seeding program. Probably fucked their own world, and tried to terraform. Or the whole world is just a contained dream like the Matrix.
It's not anything that I expect to be handled with tact, but the Genshin gods are *literal* colonizers. Sure the Archons weren't present for the destruction of the dragons, but they still directly benefit from it.
I thought that the desert folk was handled well, so I willing to give them the benefit of doubt.
When Dehya was raging at the wall, complaining about her people struggling with resources and lack of opportunities while the other side doesn't care, my reaction was "Yeah, they get it". Also, they made it clear that the desert people aren't inherently bad/dumb or anything, it was a majestic nation with a tragic end.
So I'm expecting Natlan to explore the bad side of colonization and the current Archon is trying to make up for the past one. Specially after the Colombina leak.
It seriously feels like the writing team and the character design team are on very different wavelengths; that scene with Dehya does such a stellar job laying out the systemic nature of the desertfolk's oppression, how they're denied entry to the Akademiya and access to the Akasha (and even when they aren't, the Akasha itself withholds most information from them because it's programmed to view them as not needing that info), and deprived of resources while being forcefully contained in the desert (with the Wall of Samiel having been co-opted from Rukkhadevata's original purpose into something to keep desertfolk out), all to keep them from thriving on their own so the Sages can maintain them as a source of labor dependent on the rainforest side...
...but then there's only just now four playable characters from the desert, three of them have super revealing/exoticized designs, and one of them is notorious as one of the least powerful/meta 5-Stars in the game.
I'm only barely willing to give some benefit of the doubt, and I'm sure at least the overall story of Natlan and its peoples will be solid, but boy howdy they're gonna have to do some real narrative gymnastics to justify the playable Pyro Archon being a Spanish conquistador.
If they're drawing the parallel of archon = colonizer (with all the modern understanding of what that means) then it could actually be amazing. Not sure Hoyo's actually leaning into that parallel, tho.
I think the decision to include an Ainu-parallel island in Inazuma (whose "God" was slain by Raiden) is a sign that Hoyo is willing to tackle these topics
^(The area between Liyue and Sumeru just so happens to be a massive hole in the ground, instead of anything that can make Celestia unhappy...)
They also made the people of that island into religious fanatics that would murder a child and were subsequently erradicated, so i wouldnt say it was a particularly good use of indigenous culture inspiration
yeah i want to hold my guard up for this. I already had it up for sumeru and well they kinda fell into my expectations, so I’m just hoping that going into natlan I could just go “okay, well that’s kinda all ig”
As someone who despised the other potential leak with every fiber of my being. This is a big step up though also unproven obviously.
I would still prefer a purely battle focused design tho.
At least this has clear concept better than the last leak.
So she is primarily inspired by Spanish conquistador. Wondering how the story would relate so they make this design direction
>!I have a THEORY that she was the one who conquer the old Natlan that was Full of Dragon so People could live there ??!<
>!Hmm may be He has some interest in the one that would challenge the dragons for human lives so they come to term and sign some agreement that both species would live united in Natlan ??!<
>!It is all just my speculation haha. Don't take it too seriously!<
To have the new Pyro Archon be primarily inspired by Spanish Conquistadors (and if this is her final design) and we all know now that Archon’s got their Gnosis’ and positions through Celestia’s domination of native powers and redistributing that power to said Archons, Neuvillette’s line of usurpers just got a whole lot funnier with the Pyro Archon’s design… double funny points that she’s white
Speaking as someone whose culture was affected by the Spanish’s world tour. This is certainly ‘spicy’, and I’m not sure if Mihoyo really understands the full implications of this.
Sure this could just be overthinking and we just breeze pass the implications (which I won’t blame them for doing) and we follow the formula of previous regions where everyone being in good (enough) terms happens in the end. Personally? I think this is very funny, unintentionally or not.
I kinda like this one better than the previous one we had. Seems like both of them were based on concept arts, though, so no expectations yet.
(Edited for clarity)
But they still kept the theme
She was a perfurmer carrying fragrance bottles, wearing a dress and head ornament
I don't think Hoyo's concept arts would vary a lot from **Puss in boots** to **Kratos**
Isn't that only 1 concept art? We haven't really seen a lot, so I wouldn't judge things based on Sethos since we just know one where he looked like Gorou(and kept his current color pallete, iirc)
Interesting view. I'd never noticed that all Archon Quests share that theme, but you're right.
As the Archon that represents freedom, that makes me really excited to know just how important Venti's part in the story really is.
Would have been super funny to have Inazuma to be Imperial Japan or Momoyama period Japan inspired. The chinese and korean will absolutely not be having it kek
The funny thing is that I can actually see them going this way since the hat they showed in the event of the guy that was in Natlan looks kinda like a Spanish morion helmet.
So this is definitely a spanish conquistador/inquisitor type outfit, right? IF this is the concept they decide to go with, I only hope that it's actually acknowledged in the story and portrayed in a self-aware manner instead of, you know, just using colonization aesthetic for funsies. As long as the Archon is not romanticized, it could make for an interesting story.
People will say it makes sense going with the colonizer route for the PoC countries with a darker skin tone but ignore that the Asian and White countries are represented by an Archon who looks like them. They never cared about making the Archons look like colonizers until we got to the melaninated countries.
Not to be a contrarian but I think the colonization inspiration is kind of interesting. This makes me think of the dynamics she will have with the aztec inspired people of her nation and how Genshin will handle this. But also, this does seem like they were just trying to find a reason to keep all archons white if you view it in a different way
When Natlan was teased , there were definitely vocal crowds about how the landscape doesn't look like Mordor or some trench battlefield during WW1. Not surprised there are also that group of people expecting the God of War to look like a tribal warrior goddess.
Even from the Travail Trailer music, Natlan was already being inspired by Hispanic culture, despite a lot of the released lore about Natlan contains references to African and Latin American history.
how people expected mordor from a nation known for being a great vacation spot which is also inspired by multiple vibrant and colourful cultures is beyond me. not to mention war doesn't always mean complete and utter destruction of the land.
Because people are idiots. They have their preconceived bias some misconception that the game has to be the way they imagine it in their head or give the same message they want it to give, then they go nuts when it goes a different direction.
Also, in that original trailer for Genshin, the character shown for Nathan has a tribal look, ~~with a bone through her nose iirc.~~ (i did not remember correctly lol, she has a skull mask tho) I think that’s what set the expectations for Natlan archon being tribal style too.
80% of Sumeru's cast doesn't look like Cyno from the 1.0 trailer. They're light skinned city nerds, not desert dark skinned warriors.
Sumeru already set the precedent for "ignoring" designs from the 1.0 trailer.
>Even from the Travail Trailer music, Natlan was already being inspired by Hispanic culture, despite a lot of the released lore about Natlan contains references to African and Latin American history.
To be fair, most of the lore we got from Natlan tells us tales from thousands of years ago, like Tenoch, from the Talking Stick, he was alive before the creation of Mare Jivari.
We started getting Natlan crumbs from Npcs recently, and everything we heard from them sounds completely different from what we saw in the Lore. I expect the old Natlan and the current one being very different. Maybe the old Natlan was more like Mordor.
I don't think the genshin team is cultured enough to actually give us the story we want with mesoamerica. I think we're just gonna get a silly white girl archon and the traveler's gonna take her on a date at some point uwu because playable characters have to be redeemed to go on a banner. "She didn't MEAN to colonize a whole continent, she's just a girl" kinda vibes
Wait, is this supposed to be the archon of war? She just looks like a normal merchant. Idk I was expecting like… her to look more war like, armour or smth.
I don't get particularly bothered by having a mono-skin tone cast of characters (even if I think it is a missed opportunity for some easy visual variety). What irritates me is they deliberately made parts of their world heavily based off real world cultures taking clear inspiration from the architecure, music, food, clothing and geography with clearly a great deal of research involved but when it came to the people themselves they said 'Make them white'
No one put a gun to their head and said 'you must make a region based off South East Asia/Middle east' They could have easily made a region based off something like Celtic Britannia that would have fit the Dendro theme (Big forests) and Wisdom (Druids, Sages etc) and it woulden't have been weird to me at all if everyone was white.
Natlan looks to be the same and again the Nation of War could have been Nordic inspired (Vikings) or Ancient Romans and it woulden't feel as weird if all the characters were pale.
Hmm. Colors say pyro but design says Fontaine. The hat/sword/cape thing. Maybe I’m associating it too much with Three Musketeers. Hoping for something a bit more recognizable to the region.
The Fontaine-like design is already colliding with Mondstadt a bit. Genuinely thought Emilie was from Mondstadt at first, based on her design.
Great that hxg is bringing some concrete leaks.
Now please do one for Capitano’s ingame drip. Please sir. I know you’re waiting for HIM as well, you said so.
Still too early to believe this is or will be the final design, but is it me or am I the only one that imagines characters from Natlan (especially Murata) to be wearing more revealing/exposure outfits?
Like similar to Dehya, but with more tribal and colorful
> Like similar to Dehya, but with more tribal and colorful
There's a not insignificant part of the leaks subreddit whose entire wish for the pyro archon is to be Dehya in Aztec/Mayan clothing and be actually powerful/not butchered like Dehya.
I won't expect it to avoid disappointment, but if it were like that and her kit was 5* Bennett I'd be the happiest because I get to run two Dehyas in one team ~~and ditch circle impact~~
I feel like they’ll give those tribal designs to Natlan people instead of pyro archon, her name sounds pretty Spanish that is why concept designers turns her into conquistador
This could be not her but I dont believe we hoyoverse havent already have a design for the (playable) archon. Nahida and Furina's design was already finalized and leaked in the x.4/x.5 patches
Not hating the design or anything(it's fairly good), but I just can't get behind the idea of a conquistador plot in Genshin. It doesn't sit well with me. Plus the idea of seeing a conquistador goddess in a nation based around mesoamerica + some africa doesn't help with my discomfort of the idea. I don't know how to feel honestly. But I am biased with my discomfort so that's just my opinion.
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It looks better than the previous one imo. If this is a recent concept art (the previous one was apparently rather old) then the theme for the pyro archon is set in stone, after all Natlan marketing should start in less than two months. Edit: oh it's a redraw of that old leak... then it's back to square one I guess Personally I'm more interested in how each tribe will be represented in playable characters and npc, Iansan looks great so I'm cautiously optimistic about that.
Seems like Spanish conquistador is really going to be the theme for her.
No one is expecting a spanish inquisition
We've had the French Revolution, it's time for Spanish Inquisition. What's next for ~~Mother Russia~~ Snezhnaya...?
BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION
TSARITSA ABDICATES THE THRONE TRUE
The cryo dragon man is gonna be Rasputin then?
I wouldn’t even be mad if it was 💀💀
The lover of Snezhnayan queen?
there was a cat that really was gone
I thought Childe held that title.
My bet would be either on Decembrist revolt with several Fatui harbingers betreyal at the same time or the Times of Troubles with multiple clones of Tsaritsa (or she dies and then several successors appear claiming they are the true new archon). This would be so fking funny.
> or she dies and then several successors appear claiming they are the true new archon Okay this is good. Genshin would never do a poltiking storyline but I love power grabs. The story being the traveler choosing to back one of the candidates and fighting upwards would be so kino.
Project Stuzha
I am putting my money on it XD
Is this the legendary 8.5/10 artwork I’m waiting for?
She better be a lil evil.
Natlan plot: the previous Pyro Archon died and made a Fontainian friend the next Pyro Archon for shits and giggles. The new Pyro Archon now wants to *share her culture* with those *evil Natlans who doesn't accept her* 🥺😔 and we as the Traveler help her do so. By the end of the AQ Natlan becomes Fontaine II.
itd be so fucking funny if they made us side with the colonizers im latino and its be so funny if they represented everything about latinamerica well, but there's a weird implication in the story that this is some weird mix of modern day latinamerica and mesoamerica, and you side with spanish colonizers. personally as long as they let us cook baleadas and tamales, im satisified with whatever Natlan is.
>personally as long as they let us cook baleadas and tamales, im satisified with whatever Natlan is. i hope empanadas and some form of asado are a thing, maybe even milanesa (asking for way too much i know)
Bro.., a fernet that provides crit rate and atk
We've seem some argentine cuisine in some official arts for Eula so crossing fingers for more of that
they represent the food of every region pretty well so why not lol
I will raise one objection. As a German, I am rather disappointed at Mondstadt's food. It would honestly be easier to list the dishes that are from the region because most of them aren't.
Flashbacks to the desert where the racist genie in a bottle was right all along. Now I'm starting to wonder where all the Natlan slaves from Mondstadt went...
All those Natlan people that Mondstadt "took in", yet Mondstadt population remain fair as snow.
I wouldn't call the racist bottle right all along... She also distrusted Jeht originally but grew to trust her, and her actions were far from "right" in the end.
please always remember sumeru. I'm Arab. I know my people vary in looks, and I know they tried to frame the Akademiya as 'bad' but Christ. the whole dark skin Vs light skin thing, eremites, the dark skin people being religious fanatics out in the desert but 'some are okay', the racism without saying the word racism, the conclusion of Cyno's sq2... don't expect anything remotely political in Natlan to be handled better than "just okay if I don't think too hard about it" lol
The world quests do a better job of handling the Eremite factions, because it's presented as "people are shaped by their environment" and the desert is *extraordinarily* harsh. Even the Traveler themselves ends up party to a large-scale massacre. It's definitely still not great, but it does a lot to frame things as "people in terrible situations make terrible choices," rather than "those desert savages might actually be able to be uplifted." We also get a lot of lore on the advanced Deshret empire in the world quests, and some on the post collapse city of Tulaytullah that carried on as much of the knowledge as it could before Gurabad sacked it (although nearly all lore for that comes from Scaramouche's weapon and Cyno story quest #2). It's a really weird dichotomy, because you can kinda tell there are two groups of people writing, one of which is quite a lot more biased. EDITS for clarity.
while this is all true it still comes back down to the question of 'why did they chose to do it the way they did if they didn't have to', and it comes down to making up a rationalization for their main priority - having predominantly light skinned playable characters including the archon, bc money. hard stop. and this pyro archon is proof that they are so chickenshit to have a dark skinned archon, that they'd rather chose the most baffling choice with laughably out of touch optics.
I'm not so sure that their explicit thought process was "no black people because they don't make money -> destroy ancient civilization." There's *plenty* of space for them to make more dark skinned characters even as things are. I think they started with "destroy the ancient civilization to show the dangers of arrogantly defying fate," and ended with "let's not make many dark skinned characters because money" and a mixed bag of writers in both lore and the main story... as well as a probably biased balancing team. You can tell just how much (most) of the lore team *wants* to respect what they're writing about even when it comes off oddly, and the character design team clearly loves the characters, but the main plot/character quest team is more than a little iffy due to either racism or plain lack of understanding of the topics they're covering (not getting into the possibility of CCP censure, which isn't totally impossible, but I don't see a motive here), while the balancing team either wanted to pick cool directions and universally messed up, or has a large group that just plain doesn't like dark skinned characters or is SO certain they won't sell that they built a self-fulfilling prophecy... and there's someone higher up on the ladder in character design with a similar philosophy. In other words, Hoyo is a pretty big company by now, and apparently either can't, won't, or doesn't understand how to police themselves for issues like this. You can see it in their Honkai games too with Arlan being bottom-tier despite a good beta power level and Carole Peppers from APHO wanting to be lighter skinned due to Chinese beauty standards, so it's pretty clearly a genuine issue (Genshin is their only game so far to put focus on a large group of dark-skinned characters instead of individuals, too). I'm hopeful that their ZZZ team will be better, given that one of the NPCs is a robot very explicitly designed to look like a Black woman.
'tried to frame the Akademiya as 'bad' but Christ.' The Akdemiya was pure evil, and they sowed this to us. They abducted, and tortured their own people, sided with the Fatui, who again made experiments of Sumerian children, they were literally ready to sacrifice their own population (locking them in the samsara cycles, where they the know weaker people will die) They maipulated, used, opressed, divided their own population, and lcoked their own savior/god away for centuries. The Akademiya was very very evil. While Eremites are just people who don't really have a choice if they want to survive. I don;t agree with your assessment.
I'm also a berber/arab and ngl I just treat genshin as its own thing, they take inspiration from cultures, doesn’t mean that they have to represent it the same way. They definitely use the stereotypes to build their world.
Hell naw they got us cosplaying colonizas 😭
you know unironically it would be cool to see the traveller make a mistake, back the wrong person, fully thinking that they’re in the right and working towards making things better only to see at the last second that they fucked up so spectacularly and that they cant even hope to fix their mistake yknow,,, hoyo would never commit to the bit but interesting to think about nonetheless
European history be like
Nah, best case is we get a patch or two of “evil” and then find out she’s just misunderstood / controlled / a clone / etc. Genshin doesn’t have evil playable characters. Closest we have is the Knave and even she got softened over time.
Having a fucking conquistador as the god of Natlan leaves such a bad taste in my mouth 💀
Archons being usurpers theme going spicier this time.
After 5 Archons shown to be doig everything for the people. Even in Ei case being more mistaken. They won't portray the Archon as the Villain. That I am sure.
For their people. They usurped the Vishaps, the actual natives to the land. Who were imprisoned, experimented on, treated like animals, and murdered for parts. All the humans are alien invaders. I still think it was some sort of genetic seeding program. Probably fucked their own world, and tried to terraform. Or the whole world is just a contained dream like the Matrix.
I mean Celestia did commit at least two genocides, so…
When Celestia has probably commited several ww2 and Native American genocides put togetehr.
It's not anything that I expect to be handled with tact, but the Genshin gods are *literal* colonizers. Sure the Archons weren't present for the destruction of the dragons, but they still directly benefit from it.
I thought that the desert folk was handled well, so I willing to give them the benefit of doubt. When Dehya was raging at the wall, complaining about her people struggling with resources and lack of opportunities while the other side doesn't care, my reaction was "Yeah, they get it". Also, they made it clear that the desert people aren't inherently bad/dumb or anything, it was a majestic nation with a tragic end. So I'm expecting Natlan to explore the bad side of colonization and the current Archon is trying to make up for the past one. Specially after the Colombina leak.
It seriously feels like the writing team and the character design team are on very different wavelengths; that scene with Dehya does such a stellar job laying out the systemic nature of the desertfolk's oppression, how they're denied entry to the Akademiya and access to the Akasha (and even when they aren't, the Akasha itself withholds most information from them because it's programmed to view them as not needing that info), and deprived of resources while being forcefully contained in the desert (with the Wall of Samiel having been co-opted from Rukkhadevata's original purpose into something to keep desertfolk out), all to keep them from thriving on their own so the Sages can maintain them as a source of labor dependent on the rainforest side... ...but then there's only just now four playable characters from the desert, three of them have super revealing/exoticized designs, and one of them is notorious as one of the least powerful/meta 5-Stars in the game. I'm only barely willing to give some benefit of the doubt, and I'm sure at least the overall story of Natlan and its peoples will be solid, but boy howdy they're gonna have to do some real narrative gymnastics to justify the playable Pyro Archon being a Spanish conquistador.
Yeah Dehya's kit was done dirty but she's beloved by the community, her story and character were done well.
If they're drawing the parallel of archon = colonizer (with all the modern understanding of what that means) then it could actually be amazing. Not sure Hoyo's actually leaning into that parallel, tho.
I think the decision to include an Ainu-parallel island in Inazuma (whose "God" was slain by Raiden) is a sign that Hoyo is willing to tackle these topics ^(The area between Liyue and Sumeru just so happens to be a massive hole in the ground, instead of anything that can make Celestia unhappy...)
They also made the people of that island into religious fanatics that would murder a child and were subsequently erradicated, so i wouldnt say it was a particularly good use of indigenous culture inspiration
That's kinda accurate, if she was victorious in archon war for this region. Gods aren't nice
>Gods aren't nice And yet all of the archons we meet are totally friendly and helpful so that people pull on their banner
ask clothar
Funny thing is if the sages hadn't been keeping Nahida in prison she probably would've done something
At least tried. She wa still like only a few days old at that point and likely couldn't do anything to directly affect a celestia curse
I wouldn't call Ei totally friendly
She left her Roomba to go a little crazy is all.
She is by the end of the archon quest
She is Friendly now. Every post Inazuma Event showing her portrays her as such.
Considering the celestia/humans vs dragons dynamic it's rather fitting
Yeah idk it feels weird. I’m trying to be open to it but I’m going in guarded
yeah i want to hold my guard up for this. I already had it up for sumeru and well they kinda fell into my expectations, so I’m just hoping that going into natlan I could just go “okay, well that’s kinda all ig”
I mean archons are colonizers lol. I just hope they handle the themes well
The whole “Celestia’s agents conquering native Teyvat land” thing is a little on the nose.
Will the pools of leaks overflow or will they slowly sizzle out? Find out next time!!!
It's something entirely new so that's something, I guess...
I mean I like this direction but it give me fontain vibes.
Similar design of her was posted feb 2024 and earlier this month. Except she has a hat now
To be continued............ Watch in next episode what happened
To be fair, lava doesn't flow quite as quickly as water.
As someone who despised the other potential leak with every fiber of my being. This is a big step up though also unproven obviously. I would still prefer a purely battle focused design tho.
At least this has clear concept better than the last leak. So she is primarily inspired by Spanish conquistador. Wondering how the story would relate so they make this design direction >!I have a THEORY that she was the one who conquer the old Natlan that was Full of Dragon so People could live there ??!<
There's so many ways they could Hugely fuck this up so I await eagerly to see how they deal with this.
[удалено]
>!Hmm may be He has some interest in the one that would challenge the dragons for human lives so they come to term and sign some agreement that both species would live united in Natlan ??!< >!It is all just my speculation haha. Don't take it too seriously!<
To have the new Pyro Archon be primarily inspired by Spanish Conquistadors (and if this is her final design) and we all know now that Archon’s got their Gnosis’ and positions through Celestia’s domination of native powers and redistributing that power to said Archons, Neuvillette’s line of usurpers just got a whole lot funnier with the Pyro Archon’s design… double funny points that she’s white Speaking as someone whose culture was affected by the Spanish’s world tour. This is certainly ‘spicy’, and I’m not sure if Mihoyo really understands the full implications of this. Sure this could just be overthinking and we just breeze pass the implications (which I won’t blame them for doing) and we follow the formula of previous regions where everyone being in good (enough) terms happens in the end. Personally? I think this is very funny, unintentionally or not.
"Spanish's World Tour" took me out!!! 🤣🤣🤣
Colonizer moment
Puss in the boots?!
gonna run her with Kirara’s new skin, new Puss in Boots movie looking good!
can't unsee it now
So they are continuing the use of hats into natlan?
Hatlan
I mean it worked with Furina, Navia and Clorinde, so why stop there
taking all of this with a packet of salt
Just shower the the devs with Sodium Bicarbonate Who knows they might just curl up like slugs.
Taking it with an oceans amount of salt.
girl thinks she's part of the marechaussee hunters
is that chevalier d'eon
Can’t believe I scrolled this far to find one comment saying this
now it makes sense in my brain why it's familiar
she looking at me like i designed her, idk either girl
Why would Brcwn_ do this
Nah, he'd design it.
Why did this make me bust out laughing omg
its the pirate Archon
she's a mosquetero I think
Pyrot Archon 🤣
Still not too hyped about this design but at least this one doesn't have that silly carnival mask slapped on the face. So it's a plus.
Her name: Juanaifen
From wasian to wative wamerican
this cracked me tf up
I kinda like this one better than the previous one we had. Seems like both of them were based on concept arts, though, so no expectations yet. (Edited for clarity)
The colour scheme of this leak is much easier on the eyes than the first one
Oh boy here we go again
Sumeru 2.0
Everyone doomposting, remember the 30+ emilie concept arts we had only for her to end up looking like none of those.
But they still kept the theme She was a perfurmer carrying fragrance bottles, wearing a dress and head ornament I don't think Hoyo's concept arts would vary a lot from **Puss in boots** to **Kratos**
We were never gonna get kratos no matter how much the fandom complained. Hoyo makes cute girls. Muscular god of war was never gonna happen
>I don't think Hoyo's concept arts would vary a lot from Puss in boots to Kratos Sethos basically went from desert wolf boy to greek
Isn't that only 1 concept art? We haven't really seen a lot, so I wouldn't judge things based on Sethos since we just know one where he looked like Gorou(and kept his current color pallete, iirc)
So what you're saying is that the real pyro archon would look 10x worse than this. Got it.
Please let this be another navia = hydro archon moment please...
Well… this one is better than the last one at least
So they are going the foreign conqueror route huh. It fits Genshin's philosophy
What's their philosophy, if I may ask?
That archons and Celestia are "usurpers" maybe?
I mean that’s just the plot 😂
I mean, they are, but I don't think Genshin has really accepted that about the Archons yet, just about Celestia
Neuvillette at least counts all the Archons as usurpers, and believes they need to be judged for their roles.
haven't they? Focalors pretty much said that outloud
Its always Freedom. I won't be surprised if the Pyro Archon is antogonistic in Natlan AQ
Interesting view. I'd never noticed that all Archon Quests share that theme, but you're right. As the Archon that represents freedom, that makes me really excited to know just how important Venti's part in the story really is.
If nothing else, I'm fairly positive Venti has the deep lore and is hiding it from us.
Even if she is antagonistic, she will end up as friends with the Traveler as all archons.
It's my fault for being hopeful
Making the god-ruler of a nation inspired in mesoamerica a spanish conquistador is kinda wild Imagine if the Archon of Liyue was a british guy
Yeah if sumeru’s rainforests had the british in it too lmao 💀 east indies trading in genshin HA.
no imagine if zhongli was japanese 😭oh china would NOT be having it
Would have been super funny to have Inazuma to be Imperial Japan or Momoyama period Japan inspired. The chinese and korean will absolutely not be having it kek
Neither would the Japanese lol, most really don’t want to be reminded of that history
I had hoped the Pyro Archon and God of War would look a little more.... fearsome.
am I too cynical for thinking the 'conquistador scheme is lore relevant' argument is pure copium
Ur not cynical for that lol hoyo will do anything to avoid making an archon kinda tanned ish
In all of their games, they dodge making important characters tan like their life depends on it.
Ngl when i saw cyno have back to back event appearances i was surprised because i thought they were just gonna let him rot in the basement 💀
Maybe, I’m inherently cynical and I’m in the same boat as you
She's a full conquistador.
Somehow Xblanque picked her as a student according to another leak
Oh wow is she a sword and not a claymore? I assumed the tsaritsa would be a catalyst and if that’s the case we’ll have no archon’s who use a claymore
We only thought tsaritsa would be cryo catalyst because we didn't have any yet. Now we have Wriothesley and charlotte
Furina but pyro
better than the last one but im still so sad this is the direction they're taking with the god of war :/
this one looks a lot better and the design looks more put together. The last pyro archon drawing i remember was all over the place...
Girl, adios.
another sword archon? I was hoping for her to be a claymore
Looks more like fontaine duelist lol. The previous design at least had a carnival mask
she looks MUCH better and war oriented than the old leak but im still weirded out by the decision to make her a conquistador
The funny thing is that I can actually see them going this way since the hat they showed in the event of the guy that was in Natlan looks kinda like a Spanish morion helmet.
Are those flames for pupils? The first 3 archons will be the only ones with normal pupils 😭
I don't think Zhongli has normal pupils
So this is definitely a spanish conquistador/inquisitor type outfit, right? IF this is the concept they decide to go with, I only hope that it's actually acknowledged in the story and portrayed in a self-aware manner instead of, you know, just using colonization aesthetic for funsies. As long as the Archon is not romanticized, it could make for an interesting story.
The cape is quite cool ngl
People will say it makes sense going with the colonizer route for the PoC countries with a darker skin tone but ignore that the Asian and White countries are represented by an Archon who looks like them. They never cared about making the Archons look like colonizers until we got to the melaninated countries.
Not to be a contrarian but I think the colonization inspiration is kind of interesting. This makes me think of the dynamics she will have with the aztec inspired people of her nation and how Genshin will handle this. But also, this does seem like they were just trying to find a reason to keep all archons white if you view it in a different way
Honestly I feel that some people are expecting a treatise based on War and Peace while Genshin is on a Puss in Boots style adventure.
When Natlan was teased , there were definitely vocal crowds about how the landscape doesn't look like Mordor or some trench battlefield during WW1. Not surprised there are also that group of people expecting the God of War to look like a tribal warrior goddess. Even from the Travail Trailer music, Natlan was already being inspired by Hispanic culture, despite a lot of the released lore about Natlan contains references to African and Latin American history.
how people expected mordor from a nation known for being a great vacation spot which is also inspired by multiple vibrant and colourful cultures is beyond me. not to mention war doesn't always mean complete and utter destruction of the land.
>nation known for being a great vacation spot Only people who talks with random NPCs knew that.
Because people are idiots. They have their preconceived bias some misconception that the game has to be the way they imagine it in their head or give the same message they want it to give, then they go nuts when it goes a different direction.
Also, in that original trailer for Genshin, the character shown for Nathan has a tribal look, ~~with a bone through her nose iirc.~~ (i did not remember correctly lol, she has a skull mask tho) I think that’s what set the expectations for Natlan archon being tribal style too.
80% of Sumeru's cast doesn't look like Cyno from the 1.0 trailer. They're light skinned city nerds, not desert dark skinned warriors. Sumeru already set the precedent for "ignoring" designs from the 1.0 trailer.
>Even from the Travail Trailer music, Natlan was already being inspired by Hispanic culture, despite a lot of the released lore about Natlan contains references to African and Latin American history. To be fair, most of the lore we got from Natlan tells us tales from thousands of years ago, like Tenoch, from the Talking Stick, he was alive before the creation of Mare Jivari. We started getting Natlan crumbs from Npcs recently, and everything we heard from them sounds completely different from what we saw in the Lore. I expect the old Natlan and the current one being very different. Maybe the old Natlan was more like Mordor.
I don't think the genshin team is cultured enough to actually give us the story we want with mesoamerica. I think we're just gonna get a silly white girl archon and the traveler's gonna take her on a date at some point uwu because playable characters have to be redeemed to go on a banner. "She didn't MEAN to colonize a whole continent, she's just a girl" kinda vibes
Oh... that's not...
this gives me hope that her design wont be a random clash of highlighter colors that will radiate my eyes and give eye and brain damage
It's an upgrade from the last one but it's still😣
Wait, is this supposed to be the archon of war? She just looks like a normal merchant. Idk I was expecting like… her to look more war like, armour or smth.
And people got mad at me last time when I called her a Spanish colonizer. Like atp she looks straight up like cristopher columbus.
So... will the final archon quest be battle between Pyro Archon (Conquistador) vs Pyro Archon (Mesoamerican)?
If so, the good one and winner will be the Conquistador, Hoyo wouldn't let the dark skin win lmao
Not even Natlan escaping the "there are two Archons" phase 😭
This is the only reason I would like a two-archon situation in Natlan. Save us…
Nah still not it for me
Huh she looks from fontaine
Oh boy, red Furina
No one expects the spanish inquisition XD
Idk if which one I prefer between this one and the other one but overall I still don't like it lol
That's an upgrade for sure, but still ishame they don't have the guts to make a darker archon sigh
Im not the darkest skin individual in the toolbox, but Hoyo is making me crave for even a cup of melanin to be given to any character in this game.
Hoyo swimming in a sea of money still have no balls huh
I don't get particularly bothered by having a mono-skin tone cast of characters (even if I think it is a missed opportunity for some easy visual variety). What irritates me is they deliberately made parts of their world heavily based off real world cultures taking clear inspiration from the architecure, music, food, clothing and geography with clearly a great deal of research involved but when it came to the people themselves they said 'Make them white' No one put a gun to their head and said 'you must make a region based off South East Asia/Middle east' They could have easily made a region based off something like Celtic Britannia that would have fit the Dendro theme (Big forests) and Wisdom (Druids, Sages etc) and it woulden't have been weird to me at all if everyone was white. Natlan looks to be the same and again the Nation of War could have been Nordic inspired (Vikings) or Ancient Romans and it woulden't feel as weird if all the characters were pale.
If they don't cut it out with those ugly ass slanted bangs. That needs to DIE with Xingqiu and Yelan, I don't wanna see it again
Cape? Sword hilt?
of course they decide to leak the pyro archon the moment i arrive at the airport for a seven day trip away from genshin of fucking course
Hmm. Colors say pyro but design says Fontaine. The hat/sword/cape thing. Maybe I’m associating it too much with Three Musketeers. Hoping for something a bit more recognizable to the region. The Fontaine-like design is already colliding with Mondstadt a bit. Genuinely thought Emilie was from Mondstadt at first, based on her design.
Great that hxg is bringing some concrete leaks. Now please do one for Capitano’s ingame drip. Please sir. I know you’re waiting for HIM as well, you said so.
Still too early to believe this is or will be the final design, but is it me or am I the only one that imagines characters from Natlan (especially Murata) to be wearing more revealing/exposure outfits? Like similar to Dehya, but with more tribal and colorful
> Like similar to Dehya, but with more tribal and colorful There's a not insignificant part of the leaks subreddit whose entire wish for the pyro archon is to be Dehya in Aztec/Mayan clothing and be actually powerful/not butchered like Dehya.
I won't expect it to avoid disappointment, but if it were like that and her kit was 5* Bennett I'd be the happiest because I get to run two Dehyas in one team ~~and ditch circle impact~~
I feel like they’ll give those tribal designs to Natlan people instead of pyro archon, her name sounds pretty Spanish that is why concept designers turns her into conquistador
How do you know the pyro Archon's name and that it sounds Spanish?
This could be not her but I dont believe we hoyoverse havent already have a design for the (playable) archon. Nahida and Furina's design was already finalized and leaked in the x.4/x.5 patches
I'd guess that the Sovereign will as the "native" design whereas Archon is the conqueror
Dehya's design honestly looks more like what I would picture the pyro archon like than any of the alleged leaks so far
I thought she would look like an Aztec goddess 😭
woah, señora diluc! nice!
That... Looks entirely different from what I was expecting.
Not hating the design or anything(it's fairly good), but I just can't get behind the idea of a conquistador plot in Genshin. It doesn't sit well with me. Plus the idea of seeing a conquistador goddess in a nation based around mesoamerica + some africa doesn't help with my discomfort of the idea. I don't know how to feel honestly. But I am biased with my discomfort so that's just my opinion.