Hi guys I am Inotia King a youtuber, redditor and gamer who likes theorizing about the story. I actually cobbled together a list of some of my more important theories with respect to the game Genshin Impact and Star Rail that I have been basing all of my newer theories on. I'll be putting more of those up on Hive along with new stuff but if you're impatient I also archived all my theories here. I hope some of you guys are game theorists too. Let's try to figure out these great games together!
I've been focusing so much on Natlan and both the amazing potential and (silly) screw ups miHoYo made with the brand new region. It was exhausting and produced one of the longest topics I've ever made just because I had so much explaining to do.
So this time I just wanted to bring up some simple details that may bolster another one of my old (and controversial) theories. In the second volume of Records of Jueyun which is titled —Palace Beneath the Sea— we're given a folktale about a Sea God and his bride that feels reminiscent of the archetypical East Asian folktale about a woman sacrificed to become betrothed to a sea monster. I couldn't find a specific name for this tale but we've gotten so many versions of it over the years. I forget if my first exposure to it was through Inuyasha but in the Episode Miroku's Past Mistake you have a father who mistakenly prays to a demon calling itself the Master of the Lake to purify the lake water that is being used in medicine to restore his daughter's health. As compensation for this the Master of the Lake demanded the daughter's hand in marriage. A modern take on this story in China is the 2020 CDrama the Enormous Legendary Fish where girls from a fishing village are sacrificed as brides to a sea monster every year. In Korea a KDrama called The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea also retells this story where a girl's homeland is plagued by floods and storms because their Sea God is displeased with them so she goes to marry him and placate him. (although I think this was itself based on a Japanese version of the story) In short the details have changed but the overall tale remains the same. Sometimes it's a sea god while other times it's just a monster and there are also versions where it's a dragon.
There's also a genderswap version of this story that gets a little closer to what I wanted to bring up today and thankfully there's only one - looked it up - one two versions of this story: Urashima Tarou and Toyotamahime. While the stories start out very differently they both feature the daughter of the sea god Watatsumi. I think you guys might know where's I'm going with this now. One more traditional version of this story would be the woman that Susanoo saves from having to marry Yamata-no-Orochi. This specific legend was referenced directly in Inazuma when Ei slays Orobashi.
Having this Liyue connection to Orobashi makes it likely that Orobashi was in Liyue during the Archon War before being defeated and fleeing to Enkanomiya. This is further backed by the updated lore of the Oathsworn Eye. In v4.3 the term golden god was changed to Deus Auri which became one of Morax's titles. It's what Neuvillette calls him.
O but that wasn't it. Other people have brought up this connection between Orobashi and Morax before, actually right around v4.3's release when this change was made. However I haven't seen anybody keep going with the lore of the Oathsworn Eye. It makes a very specific statement.
"It was because I could best neither Deus Auri nor Narukami that I elected to flee into waters unknown."
Now alone this wouldn't mean anything. We know it lost to Narukami because that picture above depicts him losing to her. But notice that the timing's off. The Oathsworn Eye's lore takes place before Orobashi became god to the Enkanomiyans. This therefore shows that Orobashi faced off against Narukami during the Archon War but survived or in other words they had already fought before Ei kills him with the Musou no Hitotachi on Yashiori. And there's another issue with the currently accepted timeline. A Preliminary Study of Sangonomiya Folk Belief shows us the events leading to Orobashi's attack on Yashiori which then leads to his death. At this point Watatsumi already exists and has for an unspecified amount of time. Most timelines suggest that Orobashi's creation of Watatsumi directly led to his attack since both actions were part of his deal with Celestia. That makes sense only if Orobashi started out as an enemy of Ei because as we've seen from Ei, she's relentless against threats to her eternity. She would have never allowed Watatsumi to exist in peace after having fought its patron deity. (also she would have remembered that she fought Orobashi twice)
So what could be the truth? Well Narukami doesn't necessarily mean Ei or even Makoto. Narukami is also the name of the island itself. We know this from Yae's Character Story 4 where she talks about the banner of Narukami but back in the distant past when the region was ruled by the youkai. We can see from both modern day Inazuma and Ei's Second Character Quest that her Narukami was almost devoid of youkai, having forced all of them to either flee or co-exist under humanity which significantly diminished their numbers. That was further elaborated by Takuya in Itto's Character Quest. Finally we also know that the Raiden twins immigrated to Inazuma from the mainland aka Liyue. And that leads to my controversial theory: Yae Miko is the original Electro Archon. (or actually what it was and now I think the writers have revised it to the Electro Dragon Sovereign is possessing her) There's also hints to this through dialogue because Makoto is never referred to as the original or first Electro Archon while Rukkhadevata is very quickly referred to as the first Dendro Archon. With a prior Archon to the Raiden twins this lore makes sense. Orobashi didn't lose to Morax and then Ei; rather he lost to Morax, tried to flee to Narukami and then lost to Yae. He then flees underground to Enkanomiya where eventually he agrees to create Watatsumi which is allowed to exist because Yae is not as strict as Ei. However eventually Yae is overthrown by Ei starting the Raiden Shogunate. With this new order Orobashi not only has the pleas from his people and the oath he swore to Celestia, he now also has a god that knows none of his history and has a brash attitude that he can use to conduct his sacrifice. (it's likely Yae would have figured out what he was doing and found a way to subdue rather than kill him)
Side Note: Actually I wrote a short story about this sequence of events which earned me a contest win on Hoyolab. #humblebrag
The final part of this topic is the change in story. Again previously Yae would have been the first Electro Archon but at present she's just a kitsune of the Hakushin bloodline who's become a vessel for the Electro Dragon Sovereign. There's plenty of evidence supporting this theory as well as I linked above but as it relates to this topic we have the Sacred Sakura Cleansing Summary. In the very first line it states, "Seek first forgiveness from Narukami in the skies above, and then from Watatsumi on the land below." We know when this ritual was created. As the name suggests it cleanses the Sacred Sakura which only started to exist in Inazuma during the Cataclysm. Why would the people of Narukami where the tree is located care to do anything related to Watatsumi? It only makes sense if the story had a Narukami and Watatsumi at peace where their cultures mingled. The Greco-Roman Watatsumans slowly became Japanese while the Narukamese drew on their ancient knowledge from a bygone age, stuff that might help them purify a divine tree that had absorbed a monumental amount of Abyssal Corruption.
Anyway I actually made a topic about what I think might have happened back in the original story!
Topic originally created on September 22nd, 2024.