@@ZeHoovy2595 Signors is a villain the first time we met her and her motivation would remain this way until her death. So no, she doesn’t deserve redemption.
one of my biggest gripes about inazuma is that so much plot is implied to happen OFF SCREEN and we don't even see it, it just broke the immersion for me
Absolutely. We just got so much snippet of the vision hunt decree through the Arataki Rock and Roll event and explanation to what Ayaka was trying to discuss on Ritou Island.
The true problem with Raiden's redemption arc is that she never faced the consequences of her actions. No one even came to confront and to tell her that they lost their friends because of her for example. Plus She gained maturity offscreen.
Do people forget that ei has already faced her consequences by fighting the raiden shogun for literally 5 centuries straight? She said herself that she had to do this task for the better of inazuma, and acknowledged her mistake that when time passes, people change.
Gotta agree with this one, Ei said she could die if she loses even a moment of concentration. Which mean she was risking her life for that moment. Also her redemption is probably a time paradox, that because she fought the puppet and rewrite the rules, she finally met her sister who planted the divine fox tree that protects Inazuma from gods remains that was killed on cataclysm in Inazuma
@LeaveMeAloneFBI Too bad they're still stuck together like freaking superglue. One character is tainted by the other via association. That makes the both of them just terrible and rushed by default.
Also, yeah, Raiden had potential to be a decent antagonist, but that's flushed down the toilet by Mihoyo and the Genshin Devs because of money and profits.
@@theodorovaz4427 that one makes sense tho, because until then Ei is only appeasing miko and traveler by stopping the vision decree, but she’s not convinced she did anything wrong or changed her views about eternity. Not saying it’s good storytelling, just that this at least tracks
The biggest issue here is the fact that Genshin has one rule: You can only become payable if you’re friends with Traveler. I call it the *Friendly Rule* Shogun started off as a villain but Hoyo realized that wouldn’t work as a playable character so (apart from Inazuma already being terribly rushed) they hurried to “redeem” Ei with that mini date we took her on, along with fighting herself for 500 year. Thus the Friendly Rule remained intact Because of the Friendly Rule, a subset of the community has been worried whether or not Dottore would become playable, as he is the only 100% purely irredeemable character we have in Genshin right now. I want Hoyo to break the Friendly Rule and make him playable, but part of me is worried they’ll take the “Good Clone vs Bad Clone” route and have the story revolve around the good clone taking down the bad OG Dottore. Obviously this would make zero sense However, the bigger more apparent issue with the Friendly Rule is that it holds back potential character development from most of the cast. I can’t think of any genuinely conflicted relationships between any of the playable characters, they’re all just… friendly to each other all the time. That removes any chance at conflict, which could really make characters become more stagnant as more events come out Big part of why HSR characterization is so strong is because they don’t follow the Friendly Rule at all. Seele with Bronya, Aventurine with Jade, Aventurine with Acheron, Yanqing with Yunli, Sparkle with anybody, the High Cloud Quintet, Dr Ratio with Aventurine, Fu Xuan with Qingque, all of these pairings are interesting to spectate cuz there are flaws in each one that lets them go beyond cordial greetings. Closest I can think of in Genshin is Citlali with Ororon, but that’s about it. I’m not counting Yae Miko with Gorou cuz that’s just “Teehee boys your age are sooooooo intriguing 😘” followed by Gorou being flustered, rinse and repeat The Tsaritsa will definitely be playable, but I know for a fact Hoyoverse will say she “wasn’t the true villain this whole time” so that the Friendly Rule can remain in order. Despite her literally allowing Dottore to do everything he does, they’ll twist it and find some way to make her innocent TLDR: The Genshin devs won’t let you be playable until you’re “redeemed”
Although the Tsaritsa and the Fatui were set up as the main antagonists it should be noted that a lot of the current lore is setting up Celestia as the true villains especially ever since Neuvillette and the other dragon sovereigns were introduced
Very unpopular opinion, but if the game's actually following this rule, I'd much prefer if evil characters get killed off for real instead of being unnecessarily "redeemed" just to be playable (if "unfriendly" characters can't be recruited). Fan favorites shouldn't be spared if it means hampering the writing quality.
erm the wishing for characters to join travelers party is actually canonical and they have to be friends for that lmao, and no HSR doesnt have good characters and just as cardboard as majority of genshin characters, the only good characters i can think of are aventurine and sparkle that doesnt fall into a cliche and makes the cliche their entire personality
@@BirdCraftSSB this is first grader media literacy...fatui and tsaritsa were never set up as main antagonists just because they were the primary opposition of heavenly principles, they didnt destroy nations or killed people nor they kidnapped the sibling. As for current lore not even celestia is the true villians its actually The Abyss (again not sibling's Abyss order) and celestia is protecting humans from the ruined teyvat which was destroyed during Primordial one(Heavenly Principles) vs Second descender fight and abyssal corruption which is an alien force from outside that was introduced by Nibelung, King of sovereign dragons so the soverigns arent the good guys either and they were extremely tyranical to teyvat fauna and humans
I think that the biggest problem was that she never apologized to anyone and Miko never scolded her. I think that the story would have been better if she were unaware and the puppet was intentionally obfuscating information from her
Nah fr the fact she got off basically scot free and other characters like Furina who was actually in the right was getting death glared in her story quest like🥲
That’s why I like to think Scaramouche is the embodiment of the hatred + pain Inazuma people endured from Raiden since he actually lived with the Inazuma people, and the fact Wanderer still seems to not like both Raiden and Yae
Honestly one reason i love wanderer so much. He literally *wrote an essay* on inazuma societal issues. Even his arc has similarities to ei but just done so much better, the backstory dump in 2dmv, fighting an embodiment of a past self, learning to move forward, how his trauma connects to his behavior… literally all just done better
I feel like the biggest disconnect between players and the NPCs is that vast majority of Inazuma never actually hated Raiden Shogun. They just hated the recent rules in place. Even Kazuha says he doesn’t actually harbor ill will towards what happened because even his friend died in an official duel that was fair; cause that’s how Inazuma works. The only group of people that actually hate Raiden is Kokomi’s people and even she doesn’t think it’s good to act on it. Raiden Shogun essentially has more than 500 years of social credit with her people so nobody is genuinely calling for her blood. Honestly I have more problems with Miko because it’s heavily implied she never tried once to actually talk to Ei and doesn’t actually care much for people. She just cares enough to not upset Ei because she cares.
Added to that, there's the old "the person at the top is good, but the underlings are undermining the good person" aspect to it as well, that you often see in dictatorships. And in this case, that was actually an issue, to a certain degree.
It's just a mess in general. Miko is a bad person to Ei and Inazuma for not once trying to talk to her, Kokomi is an idiot for enabling a rebellion against a god, and Ayaka is a manipulating cunt for guilt tripping us into helping her
You all say Kokomi or wanderer… What about yae miko, who’s whole role was to be a deus ex machina and also result in ruining kokomi’s whole arc just because she planned it all. And I will say this, while early parts of genshin like Mondstadt and Liyue may not have the best writing, at least they didn’t do their characters dirty until Inazuma.
If Raiden Shogun has a million haters I’m one of them. If Raiden Shogun has 1000 haters I’m one of them. If Raiden Shogun has 1 hater it’s me. If Raiden Shogun has a 0 haters I am dead. Until my I draw my final breath I will hate Raiden Shogun. Today I was Supposed to upload a collab with Flip, but the man is procrastinating super hard.
Make that 2 I hate her with every bone of my body I have her with the blood that pumps through my heart My workout fuel is raiden hate But ngl she is just bad She is a deadbeat archon Made scaramouche and instead of attending to something akin to her literal child she threw her out there to do what he does i guess fuck him Doesnt even do a daily checkup on her puppet to see if anything is a massive shit show even tho she can do that Starting the vision hunt decree even tho the mental damage on vision holders losing their vision would be pretty big like its literally ripping the physical manifestation of their will from them Then starting a whole war leaving villages destroyed and innocent people dead The fact that you can see the collateral damages of what she has done with her own country is sad Not to mention how sakomu decree made many tourists and business men stranded on foreign land with no way to return while the shogun army would rob them or take advantage of their poor situation And her killing kazuha's friend is just a sprinkle on top Not going further for now but the fact that after all this scummy shit from her side after you beat her you INSTANTLY GO TO A DATE WITH THIS HOE . IM OUT.
Make that 2 I hate her with every bone of my body I have her with the blood that pumps through my heart My workout fuel is raiden hate But ngl she is just bad She is a deadbeat archon Made scaramouche and instead of attending to something akin to her literal child she threw her out there to do what he does i guess fuck him Doesnt even do a daily or hell even weekly checkup on her puppet to see if anything is a massive shit show even tho she can do that Starting the vision hunt decree even tho the mental damage on vision holders losing their vision would be pretty big like its literally ripping the physical manifestation of their will from them Then starting a whole war leaving villages destroyed and innocent people dead The fact that you can see the collateral damages of what she has done with her own country is sad Not to mention how sakoku decree made many tourists and business men stranded on foreign land with no way to return while the shogun army would rob them or take advantage of their poor situation And her killing kazuha's friend is just a sprinkle on top Not going further for now but the fact that after all this scummy shit from her side after you beat her you INSTANTLY GO TO A DATE WITH THIS HOE . IM OUT.
@@ninny_alt I don't think we ever saw her being a brilliant tactician. They really went "Tell, not show" with her. Having a booklet of all possibilities, and expecting subordinates to navigate the booklet during critical and tense periods is a sign of an inept, terrible leader. And a "Surprise! I hired mercenaries!" does not a brilliant tactician make, either.
Yeah they say she's a genius strategist but I never saw her pull any strategic thinking in the plot. Don't know about her character story though Atleast with Alhaitham he's at least shown that he can make smart decisions and no NPC is glazing him as some sort of genius.
I got both Raiden and her weapon during her previous run, in what was my luckiest pull session ever. She's definitely one of my strongest characters (DPS, battery, EM trigger, etc). I even liked her story quest where she got to speak to the ghosts in the ley lines, I thought it was a nice emotional beat. But I also 100% agree that it all felt very forced, and we really have no reason to forgive/forget her tyranny during the whole Vision Hunt arc. Which is why I take great pleasure making her tank most of the damage in fights. Not enough to kill her (I still need her to do her burst), but it's just a small bit of payback on behalf of the canon.
Ngl now that we have a chief justice in teyvat who just regained his authority i dont blame the ancient being hoyo should allow him to hold raiden accountable at its fullest and judge her
Agreed. Pretty much every reference to the archons is like "I will cast judgement! ...Oh, they're on a picnic? Okay, I guess it can wait." Come on, HoYo.
Every new archon released since raiden makes her make look worse for being selfish. Venti helped traveler and mondstat and was selfless. Zhongli let Liyue be more independent. Nahida and traveler overthrew the corruption of the old akademiya and gave scara a second chance. Furina sacrificed her own happiness and humanity and created a facade to fool the people and save fontaine, she by far made the most selfless act shown in the story even though at first glance she was incompetent due to her acting. And finally Mavuika, she is the defenition of a hero since even though she asecended to godhood she still retained her humanity and understood what is best for Natlan and sympathized with Capitano’s desire to save Natlan. The writing of all the other Archons and their selflessness makes Ei make more selfish and a badly written character.
Even then you could argue that since Zhongli aided the fatui in order to test Liyue Harbor, Zhongli himself is not entirely selfless. He did everything so he could retire in peace - this motivation is for himself which is quite selfish, albeit well-intentioned. His action at the end of the day is that he aided the fatui in Liyue Harbor's very possible demise following an already tumultuous time.
"Zhongli let Liyue be more independent" he literally conspired with the Fatui in an event that nearly destroyed the city because he wanted to retire, that's some severe whitewashing.
Though to be fair, I do think the statement that we MADE Raiden reverse her policies is a bit disingenuous, since I'm 100% certain that even with the buff she still could've beat the Traveler's ass if she wanted to, and she was just hearing them out and was convinced.
Bruh I remember setting foot on r/RaidenMains asking a fun question abt Acheron and Ei, wondering if they found any similarities between the two Bro those guys in that subreddit did not hold back 💀 they were PISSED at that question of mine
@@etheriousjackal5577You can’t undo the past. It’s just the records of it that get erased from the world and people’s minds make stuff up to fill the void created as a result. We see it happen with Nahida and Wanderer. Edit: I think I misunderstood your comment, and that you meant the same thing by mentioning Scara’s plan failing.
@@FBl Yep that's why I said he wasn't fully redeemed. Since he hasn't really made up for what his past actions yet (Although I feel like that journey has just started)
It's ironic that they teases us in 1.1's story with the fact that we would approach a dictatorship hard to enter in Inazuma, with further insight once Kazuha released, only to revert at the end with no consequences at all. Even the environment story of Inazuma reflects the catastrophic state resulted from Ei's negligence and insistence in eternity. It could have been so good having her see the desastrous state of her nation and have that plant doubts about her mindset
I do largely agree. Raiden was definitely mishandled, and Inazuma was rushed, but I do think one thing that is worth mentioning, and you did mention but didn't really seem to consider in your final verdict, is that Ei was explicitly afraid that what happened to khaenri'ah would be done to Inazuma. That was the whole point of trying to pursue being close to the heavenly principles. Her first story quest was absolute trash, hands down, but the second story quest had Ei recognize that what she did was wrong, and enter into a five hundred year long duel for the sake of trying to begin amending her mistake. So the execution was absolutely terrible, hands down, and yes she absolutely was a terrible Archon. But I do understand what they were trying to do with her character, and because her second story quest gives me hope some of that potential might be realized in the future, I'm willing to hope future updates in the story will properly handle her character.
@CodeTetsu I know! It would only have taken a single extra cutscene to actually sell the significance of that. 500 years of fighting the incarnation of your past screw up would have been a great way to sell she was trying to change, and all they would have had to do was make one more cutscene to show just how grueling of a challenge that would be.
@@CodeTetsu I thought there was gameplay where you only play as the Ei and she’s fighting the shogun puppet in that realm of consciousness within the story quest so it wasn’t all off screen
One thing that irks me about Raiden, which then got addressed with Furina, is that there’s never a moment where Raiden confronts the ramifications of her actions, in this case her negligence of running the nation and what it did to her people. Ultimately, that’s what happens when Inazuma as a whole ended far too quickly to get a cathartic payoff. Perhaps the worst consequence is that most pieces of Inazuma content released afterwards feels like the devs playing catchup to right the wrongs of the main story when they could’ve been used to flesh out the nation. Kokomi and Raiden’s story quests basically amount to epilogues, while Ayato serves to retroactively fix plot holes.
Might I also add that the Arataki Rock and Roll event added to the Inazuma arc by giving more depth to what was happening on Ritou Island and the overall events of the vision hunt decree.
I think this video is much better than your previous Raiden video which I remember leaving a long comment on a while ago. But I do still want to throw in a few rebuttals. Visions affect people differently, in fact in Fontaine there's lore that even suggests that visions might ultimately be a detriment and that ascending to one is not at all what it's cracked up to be but that's besides the point. There are numerous people who have lost their visions and were fine (IE Itto) and even some who gave theirs up willingly. Ei 100% didn't know everything the Fatui were doing either. You say that she was aware of the economic crisis, but if so she wouldn't have taken such drastic steps afterwards to correct it. Ei kicks the Fatui out of Inazuma (only Archon thus far to do this), opens the borders, and introduces numerous new decrees aimed at easing tensions (Kazuha's story quest) and bolstering the economy, local business and trade (Kuki's VL). If she knew and agreed with what was happening she wouldn't have gone to such lengths to correct it; remember, she was getting fed false info that everyone loved the VHD and the people were happy. It's why she's so pissed in her first story quest where she outright says that if they ever try to deceive her again like what happened with the Fatui she would kill them. You said that at the end of the Archon Quest the VHD and Sakoku are reverted, but Sakoku isn't reverted until the end of her second story quest. That's actually kind of important because the entire idea of her story quests is Ei realizing how misguided she is and how she needs to throw her old ideals away and change, and not be scared of erosion anymore, which comes to a head when the Shogun turns on her and is resolved with the decree's abolition. The ultimate idea of the Shogun was that one day Ei would become so eroded that she would become a threat to Inazuma (something we know can happen, see Azdhaha in Liyue) so she'd seal herself away and leave Inazuma to the rule of a being who was immune to it. I agree she was definitely misguided but it's unfair to say she only cares about herself (and where does Yae EVER say she only cares about herself, she says the tantrum part yes but she goes on in that same scene to elaborate that trauma has warped her view on things too). Ei is far from a selfish character; self-righteous definitely, but not selfish, and there's a major difference. A selfish character wouldn't make the decisions she did; if you want to pull up things Yae said, she literally spells out after the fight in 2.1 that in her pursuit of eternity she not only closed her eyes to her nation but herself, that what she was doing was tantamount to self-torture because she believed due to the trauma of what happened that what she was doing was the only way for Inazuma to persevere forever. "But eternity is far too cruel a fate for you, Ei... Not only have you stopped paying attention to the world, but you have stopped paying attention to yourself... It must have been terribly lonely here, all alone, for centuries on end." (no link because RUclips's stupid but you can look this up to verify it) Also we're never told anywhere that Ei is conscious every time the Shogun uses Musou Isshin, just that her consciousness resides in it. In fact this is likely not the case since we find out later that the sword also housed Makoto's consciousness in Raiden Act II and she outright says she was unaware of everything that has happened. You could argue that it's different since that was a shred of Makoto's consciousness instead of the entire thing, but we don't know for sure. Also, the only vision holder we know of to directly die from her was Kazuha's friend, and that was the result of a duel before the throne where the losing party dies. Vision holders otherwise would be arrested or harassed, but we're never told the penalty is death anywhere. As for the Scaramouche stuff, it's unclear if she knew he was conscious, since we're told he only ever even woke up due to an unforseeable error. She needed a being immune to erosion, which Scara as a being that could feel emotion wasn't. She thought forcing him to be the puppet would be cruel but also couldn't bring herself to destroy him, so she laid him to rest in the Shekkei Pavillion (this is against Yae's advice that she should have just destroyed him). It's another example of Ei doing what she thinks is mercy but not realizing the harm it would cause, which is on brand for her character up until then. It's also worth noting that in the CN version of the game she makes comments in her VL about him that suggest she actually had a lot of guilt and regret over what happened which is why she doesn't try to stop him. She also left him the feather which we've known from the beginning meant that her people were to treat him with care. Again, she was incredibly misguided, but she was doing what she thought was right. I don't think they retconned anything about this connection between them, she's not some evil force doing malicious things for no reason, she's a broken misguided warrior trying her best to hold onto the few pieces she has left after everything shattered. Lastly, the card event. First off the writing in this event was horrible all around (Charlotte knows who Kazuha is immediately but somehow not a literal Archon) but the reason people fear Ei isn't to do with anything she did, but rather just her status and powerlevel which Yae elaborates on. If you were playing cards with the humanoid equivalent of a walking WMD who could nuke the country off the face of the planet with a snap of her fingers if she felt like it you'd probably nervous too. People are nervous around archons, heck people were nervous around Nahida even and she didn't have the reputation of being a war god with lots of kills under her belt. Overall I think Ei is a character with legitimate nuance and depth and growth, more than a lot of Genshin characters, but she was the victim of a rushed and scuffed archon quest and a weirdly framed first story quest. If they had included the content of her SQII in the archon quest instead of the rushed ending I believe it would have cleared up a lot of the misconceptions around the character.
Even Neuvillette, the literal Hydro Dragon Sovereign, says (in a simplified way) that he'll wait to judge her when she stops sulking in her room. Screw you, Raiden. Screw you and your entire hellish island nation. Except Watatsumi Island, they're chill. 99% of Inazuma though, screw you, Inazuma.
@whiteclover1643 And why did they start the war? And how would Neuvillette get clapped? He's the Hydro Dragon Sovereign and he's not Orobashi. Zhongli avoids him too
She is not evil but overly protective which results in the things she did. I mean she lost Makoto and had to take part in a cruel war against the abyss. That is why she thought her idea of eternity would be able to protect her people.
I love the Raiden Shogun and she could've been the perfect character for a meaningful redemption arc similar to what Sunday is undergoing in Honkai Star Rail. Instead the rushed plot has too many conflicting contradictions that post archon quest, it almost disassociates any blame for the war and suffering Ei herself had caused. We never see her undergo a significant change in her ideology, face public scrutiny from her own people for misleading them and meaningfully work with her people like Sangonomiya Kokomi to fix the mistakes she caused for a better future. This problem extends to other characters like Sangonomiya Kokomi with her tactical genius in battles, Sacred Orabashi Bloodline, and her desire to work with the Shogun as an advisor being left as background lore hidden in scattered letters and character story descriptions. I know this won't ever happen, but I wish Hoyo would completely redesign Inazuma from the ground up. The region desperately needs Natlan's Tribal Chronicles to flesh out places like Watatsumi Island which should have been an city comparable to Inazuma city itself and Natlan's war system for the civil war plotline.
Oh wow yeah Sunday is basically what they tried to do with Ei but actually done well. Villain who despaired seeks to create a false Utopis in a misguided attempt to prevent tragedy from ever occurring again by forcing their will onto the people they govern. But where Sunday had a sympathetic reason for his attempt and good intentions but was rightfully called out and stopped but also isn't immediately redeemed, Ei gets redeemed way too soon and honestly needs a rewrite to her backstory.
@@mr.protagonist5639 I'm glad you agree with my assessment. I would argue on your last point that Ei's current backstory is already perfect setting up a Sunday like narrative, with the loss of Makato, Kitsune Saiguu, Mikoshi Chiyo, and Sasayuri being the catalyst for her suffering. The problem was that none of these characters were ever shown or told in game as a source for Ei's motivations outside of the trailers. Pulling from Natlan again, Ei needed what Mavuika had; playable pov flashback scenes where the player is shown her friends dying one by one and Ei herself reinforcing her messed up isolationist worldview for the plot to later challenge. Aventurine from Star Rail had this done amazingly in the leadup to his boss fight.
@chrisgarbutt1893 Yeah, none of Raiden's friends were ever mentioned or shown in the freaking Inazuma Archon Quest, the thing that was supposed to explain her motivations and all that. They only appeared in trailers, that's it. Not to mention that the Archon Quest was rushed to hell and Raiden had a pathetic "redemption" arc that was way too soon and not earned. Like, her deceased friends were never talked about in her two Story Quests.
I think Raiden on her own is actually a solid character. Yes, her reaction to Makoto's death was emotional. She made impulsive decisions, ones characteristic of a tantrum. However, rather than literally being a tantrum, I find it infinitely more likely for her desire for eternity to be a coping mechanism. She lost all her friends, and so she desired to make nobody ever lose anything again by keeping them in perfect stasis. Furthermore, by the very nature of her goal, she does in fact keep her people in mind. Eternity means keeping her own, lonely world as is while everyone else gets to spend time with their family for eternity. Her heart is in the right place, but she goes about it in all the wrong ways. I think it's actually really interesting how she's essentially lying to herself: posturing as some stoic figurehead of eternity when in actuality she's a broken person and a terrible leader (seeing as she's only had experience as a warrior). So, yes, she's a fine character, **BUT** Like her actions are never addressed??? Ever???? Okay sure trauma and all that, but that doesn't excuse her actions. Murder and depriving people of their ambition should make her people hate her. Yet everything is perfectly fine and we even go on a date with her (which was a jarring experience right after a duel to the death). One thing that's important to note is that we didn't actually beat Ei, the goal was to shake her will and question her ideals. And we *succeeded*... all for her to remain completely unchanged minus the vision Hunt Decree. TLDR: Good tragic character but completely falls flat in execution because its treated like she DIDNT murder her people and steal their ambition
Wait you said her world of Eternity makes things remain in stasis but everyone else gets to be with their friends and family…but then she kills people’s friends and family. If she just stole the visions then fine, but then having PUBLIC executions for it completely contradicts the fact she shouldn’t want to instill this trauma on anyone else. At least if she did it in secret things wouldn’t be so traumatic, but she displays the visions for everyone to see as well.
@@CodeTetsu The public execution was only for the people that did not want to partake in her happy stasis world. So no it doesn't contradicts her goal.
@@overlordshiina It literally does because she can just take the visions by force and imprison them. She doesn’t have to execute them for this goal. She also doesn’t have to do it in public either. She can’t grieve over losing a loved one and want people to be happy but then kill loved ones and make people miserable and implant public fear. She’s either a hypocrite or stupid
@@CodeTetsu Or her region is based on Japan, a nation that historically has had a rather low regard for human life. Also worth noting that this idea of "spend resources on people who provide nothing productive to society" is a rather new one. Before tech advanced to a certain point, that just wasn't done much. You either put them to work, imposed corporeal punishment and turned them loose, or you killed them. The wealth wasn't there that you could justify it, not unless they were nobility or something.
yeah I kind of agree with that. and it also puts into thought that all the characters that we can play with is not completely bad. and what I mean is we don't really have an awful person or an evil one to be a playable character
The irony around the fact that the same people who proudly boast about skipping it undoubtedly are some of the same people getting info wrong about Ei. That said, I still like her, I just wished she was handled better because she was so interesting. She was the first Archon antagonist. She is one of the most powerful Archons in terms of sheer martial prowess. Her theme being Eternity is thought provoking. She created an immortal (or at least ageless) body and is essentially a spirit, very fascinating. The fact she can take Visions is INCREDIBLY interesting as she wasn't just able to take Electro Visions, but ANY Vision. Not only that, she was able to take away the Traveler's ability to use the elements. The Traveler doesn't have a Vision, yet she shut them down all the same. So, can she just null elemental powers in general? See what I mean about her being so interesting? That is a very dangerous ability and I wanted to know so much more about it. You'd think this power would be reserved for the Tsaritsa (and would fit her best, all things considered) or even the Unknown Goddess. But here it is, the 3rd Archon just casually using it. When we inevitably fight the Tsaritsa and Unknown Goddess, will they use this power, too? Be somewhat lame now given we have already seen it, the hype and sense of helplessness has already come and gone, and we beat it. I like Ei, but it definitely should have been one of their abilities over hers, but I digress. I heard something about villian characters sell poorly or something, so she had to have an immediate redemption. I will remember that. Because if The Doctor, someone who we see is pure evil, far worse than Ei, becomes a playable character, it means he will get redeemed. I shouldn't have to say why that is an issue. If people raised this much of a fuss over Ei, but are totally cool with the Redeemed Doctor, the hypocrisy will be more palpable than Scooby-Doo fog.
Mihoyo hired monkeys to write the inazuma story, I wish it was as good as the newest archon quests. I like how they learned from their mistakes but at what cost,I love Inazuma characters design ,but most of them have bad or mid writing and the story is very rushed.
@@crowned67I don’t really see why them being in a pandemic meant that they needed to rewrite the story. If anything that’d be more of a reason to delay and work in the story more
@@amari7782 the pandemic definitely affected the workflow to some extend. I think Inazuma story has some good ideas based on real historical events. It's bad because they did not have the time to explain and expand the idea. Imagine if they did try to delay and flesh out the story tho (300 days Ayaka banner lol)
@@duckyymomo5714 bruh all they really needed was to actually flesh out Ei character and add more context behind her actions. Hell literally showing why visions can potentially be a problem can overall help the narrative that’s being set up in dainsleif quest line. Hell Ei herself could also sympathize with the traveler in this as well. Which is why I don’t know what they were cooking
I think they actually wrote her well as a character, but fumbled up along the way: even though she knew how society should work and behave, she actually had close to no experience with ruling her own people when Makoto was still alive. She was extremely introverted and would have probably become an extreme no life shut in self-weaponized soulless person if not for her sister constantly reminding her that she's not a tool. So when she abruptly lost all of the few friends she had and her sister, and now had to take care of a whole ass country with extreme depression knocking on her door, you bet she'd mess up big time and screw things up. She wasn't meant to be a great ruler, and in that regard they actually succeeded in showing that. But I DO agree that her redemption was waaaay to smooth. Like people from another country were messing around with the very land her and her sister fought and killed for eons ago, and she just went "Nah, I'd eternity". And now she's baffled by the changes on the street right outside her door ?Like... dear Electro god, WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE WELL AWARE OF INAZUMA'S STATE??? And in the end, they basically pinned all the blame onto her depressed state from 400 years ago (the Raiden Shogun) by saying "My past self was a beech for setting up such tight rules out of depression and shut-inism, but now I'm alright so everything is fine because I'm actually nice since I've learnt how to be a decent somewhat sociable god". Now regarding Scara, I think putting him on sleep mode was her best decision from the last 500 years, cause she was in no shape to raise him and would definitely have screwed him over. Then again she should have at least retaliated against those who dared defy her "He's mine, don't you dare touch him" decree (the golden feather she gave him), but that's another way to show how her writing wasn't that consistent.
I think the conversation Ei had with Miko during the end of the Arataki song event awhile back highlighted the main issue. Ei gained maturity OFFscreen. Her speech at the end of the event wouldve been so much much better if the Inazuma quest wasnt so damn rushed and she suddenly became good.
They got mad a focalor using her mortal self to save a nation and then kill herself to see it through but when ei wants to be a literal turant because time exist and people die it’s different
@@Finalslashesit’s funny too cuz focalor plan literally doesn’t account for celestia just destroying Fontaine anyway so ultimately he plan was convoluted as hell and shouldn’t have worked
@@FinalslashesEi wasn't traumatized by the idea of time passing and people dying, she was afraid of the consequences that Visions and their connections with ambitions (and therefore, arrogation) would have because she has seen what ambition and arrogation have caused in Khaenri'ah and all of Teyvat during the Cataclysm, she saw a whole nation fall victim to it and lost all of the people she loved die in the hands of the Abyss and had to kill a friend hers herself because they were corrupted, saying that she became a tyrant because time exists is just dishonesty, you just want to excuse your hatred for her.
I agree that she is poorly written, but the complaint about the timeline I think is misunderstanding the nature of the current state of Inazuma when we arrive. When Ei abandons her nation to mope in her 'realm' this left a power vacuum that the factions in Inazuma competed over. While the vacuum was not apparent at the start due to her instating the Raiden Shogun, the puppet was an inferior leader who allowed the various clans to squabble with each other. This all comes to a head once the Fatui plan goes into motion. The Vision Hunt Decree, The Sakoku Decree, and various other policies were recently enacted as a joint operation between the Kanjou Comission, the Tenryou Comission, and the Fatui. The Fatui had abused the Xenophobia and Elitism of the Kanjou and Tenryou Comission to set the stage for a bloody civil war. The Sakoku Decree isolates the nation while the Vision Hunt Decree gives Watatsumi Island an excuse to revolt, plunging an isolated nation into Civil War. Both Decrees were part of the Fatui plan, and petitioned to the Raiden Shogun by the commissions. These were not caused when Ei threw her temper tantrum, but instead abused the vacuum created by her leaving a puppet in charge of the nation.
This is just me, but I feel like people are overly negative about her first story quest and simply it to a date when it constantly showing how out of touch she is with the world to the point a camera is outstanding. Then it slowly has her think about just how long she’s been stuck thinking about her sister and not going about things in a progressive way. All that to lead into her second story quest where she literally puts her foot down and fights the puppet because it’s stuck in her old way of thinking that Raiden herself thinks is bad and unappreciative to the citizens that champion her. I’m not saying it’s expertly written but i do like how Raiden’s faults are all in Scaramouche. They lost the most precious things they cared about and let that trauma dictate every choice instead of learning to live for tomorrow.
While I still like Raiden Shogun, it’s definitely just because I see what the writers were trying to go for, not because of what ended up being her story in canon. And admmittedly archon bias. My interpretation is that Ei’s motives stem entirely from the trauma about the cataclysm 500 year ago. She basically lost everyone close to her, didn’t want that to repeat, and isolated herself to not get attached to people anymore. In my opinion, the only reason her story sucked was because the writers were not given enough time for her to regret her actions. And I think her character quest 1 could have fixed her character, if it was handled a bit differently, even if the archon quest had stayed the same. And I think the writers were also aware of this, because of how the first character quest ended. Here’s my attempt at an idea of how it could have gone better. Our hypothetical non-canon character quest starts with an indication that the Raiden Shogun is in a bad mood, with the storm around inazuma growing more dangerous. Due to this sudden situation, the traveler and paimon go to her to see what’s bothering her. Since Inazuma’s vision hunt has been abolished by now, and Ei’s direction for Eternity has been significantly challenged, she is unsure of the direction her nation should go in, so the traveler and paimon suggest that she goes to see what Inazuma is like nowadays. She agrees to this, and the two walk around Inazuma city, but as time goes on, Raiden notices two things, First being that the world has changed significantly for the better, and Second being that her people seem to fear her significantly. We can also get foreshadowing about the Tenryo comission being corrupt and stuff in this first part. Curious to know why her people fear her, Ei asks the Traveler and Paimon about why her people see her in such a way, as a terrifying entity, rather than a beloved deity for guarding them from the dangers of the outside world, to which Paimon(because clearly the traveler doesn’t talk a lot) tells Ei that Raiden Shogun is responsible for basically all the major issues that were resolved during the Archon Quest, from the Vision Hunt, to the Civil War. Ei, bewildered by this, demands to see proof that her leadership of Inazuma has caused problems, to which ur traveling duo takes Ei to either the battlefields of the Civil War, or more likely to be effective, Watatsumi Island, where we show her how the people of Watatsumi live in poverty and hunger due to the Civil War which was caused by the Vision Hunt decree, and how the actions f Raiden Shogun led to the exact thing she wanted non one else to live through, the death of loved ones. Here we can also come across some info about how something big is happening with the Tenryoo comission, which leads us to the final third of this character quest, Ei confronting the Tenryo comission. This part can work basically the same as it happened at the end of Raiden’s first character quest in canon, where she eventually duels that one guy to judge him and the Tenryo comission, where she shows mercy on the guy she duels at the end when she wins it, showing that she has learned a valuable lesson about the way she had run things in Inazuma, and concluding with her stating that she’ll take on a more serious, and responsible role in governing Inazuma. This last third being basically the same as the original character quest is my argument for why the writers definitely knew that Raiden Shogun’s character was not given enough time to develop. I don’t hate Raiden Shogun, I just pity that her story was so poorly handled because they didn’t have enough time for that.
Tbh raidens intro and her being unbeatable and killing the diplomats of one of the strongest nation without batting an eye is one of the best power move ingame till date
Oh i knew frame 1 it was literally impossible for her to be a well written character. You know inazuma was just going to end in a wet fart where they dont handle any systematic issues and and just end the visions hunt decree. Which is like only the tip of the iceberg of stuff wrong with inazuma. Oh i knew i was being lied to the whole time i just don't care. I just let them take advantage of me and inazuma because i could stop it whenever i needed to. Don't even need to get started on how the resistance is incredibly ineffective and add literally nothing and are incredibly incompetent. There is no actual reason the good factions weren't working together. As well as yoimiya being really poorly written. Like i understand what they were going for but she talks over eveyone and tells them how to feel etc. it's not this well meaning person who just is really excited and talks a lot.
Ei knows the situation as much as the Shogun puppet does, and the former is completely cool with the latter’s decisions. But both were working with incomplete knowledge of the whole situation. Sara’s dad sanitized the reports that Raiden Shogun didn’t know her actions sparked a civil war; although the Watasumi stuff was a sh!t-show centuries in the making.
Funny thing is, it would have kind of worked if it ended more like a start of a redemption, many lifespans to repair the damage she did and do better since she is ya know... immortal, And justify her existence out of jail and building trust with her p we ople again with another puppet
i think she as a character is exceptionally well written prior to the events of the inazuma archon quest. i think it’s specifically her ingame arc which was handled poorly. i think it would have been better handled if we’d actually seen more of her in the archon quest. she’s in like 3(?) scenes or something and really should’ve gotten more screentime to properly flesh her out
@@eddieboston6540 yeah one of which was totally wasted because they wanted us to go on a date with her. the other one was incredible but it doesn’t change the fact that she has little to no screentime in the archon quest. i don’t really see your point
It's like they wrote 2 people. One being a villain and another one being a kind of redeemable antagonist, the problem is that they don't mesh them together but instead alternate them making the entire character a confused mess. If they just picked one lane, it would have been much better
I don't 'hate' any playable genshin character tbh. But Ei still is my LEAST favorite of them and that's due to the writing. I hate how in the archon quest she's an antagonist but as soon as her first SQ comes, we're going on a date with her. Not only that but I think the people of inazuma were a little too forgiving of her and Ei had took no accountability. I honestly wished she had stayed an antagonist
We can play Arlecchino story quest and she still shows her ruthless side. It's more like lack of reasons why Raiden accept traveler for no reason. Arlecchino accepts Traveler since Traveler accepts Lyney and co despite working under her. This is further add salts when Kujou Sara doesn't get hangout or story quest.
While I don’t dislike her design as much as others do, I would’ve liked if Ei had more armor elements or just life Shogun-like design elements. Ayaka and Kuki (if you look at her hood) have more shogun-esque design elements than Ei had in either her current or past outfits
If they let her be flawed and not completely morally good as a chart I think it’s would be much better. Maybe a bit more like Arlecchino but if she was in a deep grief and clearly not in a good state of mind
Honestly, if Raiden wasn't an Archon, I would never pull for her. I'll never get over how she treated her people and how she threw baby Wanderer away. (Yae Miko down playing Shoguns actions is a major reason why I don't like her either...😑) I haven't seen such resinless behavior since Hera and Hephaestus!😤🙄🍵💅🏽
there was a comment I read a while ago that basically said that Raiden's 1st story quest should have been what Furina should have gotten and vice versa, and I agree with it 100%. Furina's then should've experienced her 1st story quest as her 2nd one. Raiden needed to experience what the traveler was basically forced to do when they 1st got to Inazuma, which was to visit those whose visions were taken away. Learn the consequences of her actions, listen to the frustrations of her people, etc. I really don't know why they gave such her such a happy-go-lucky 1st story quest after she put her nation through a civil war. Also, the traveler ??? Totally okay with her after almost being beheaded by her ??? again idk man like damn you're a whole kinder person than me, that's for sure.
Although I do agree with a lot of the points made here, I do think you've neglected the grief aspect of her character. The entire reason she locks her self up is because she cant move one from that loss 500 years ago. It very much is her entire reason for doing the horrible stuff she does. Does it fix the story issues? No, I don't think it was properly shown since we learned most of it from her her teaser. I still don't like how they treat her redemption arc and brush off all the horrible things she's done, no matter the reasons she has.
She has one of the most interesting lore in genshin but hoyo fumbled it so badly 😭speaking of wanderer I don't like how Scara's backstory was basically like look it's Fatui again, they corrupted this poor puppet. It reminds me how they try to excuse Ei's actions by blaming Fatui. When you think about it both of them got away with everything they have done. Nobody remembers Scaramouche or his actions, at least people remember Ei's actions and she has to see the terror in her people's eyes everytime she leaves Tenshukaku.
I agree with everything. Also I hate the fact that everyone is just cool with her, she's like a superstar? Not even kokomi hates her. Heck it wouldn't have been so bad if she gave independence to Watatsumi and Kokomi could have made trade deals herself with Liyue or Sumeru, Natlan. Etc. Also the fandom pretending she did nothing wrong or downplaying how badly she treated her people just because they like to ship her with Yae Miko it's super weird.
For me, I on the other hand like Ei as a character. Not because of all the battle animations, but a personality I can relate to. You don’t know how much trauma of losing friends and family is like, so it makes sense that so much emotion can numb your responsibility of taking care of a nation. And before anyone points out that it’s an easy task of letting go the traumatic experience, NO IT ISN’T by the way. This can last for many years or even forever without help outside. If Yae didn’t enter the Plane of Euthymia without the Traveler’s help, then Miko wouldn’t have been able to woken up Ei up from her depression and the whole region would still be in its miserable state. And I don’t mind her story quests being that terrible; her first is about experiencing the modern state of Inazuma while still finding it alien was kind of enjoyable, while her second feels like a good ending to her arch, having to battle against her past self and trying to lead Inazuma to a brighter future feels satisfying for me. But the one thing that everybody forgets or EVEN neglects to mention is the fact that she acts more as morally gray rather than villainous. Which again I don’t mind, as long there is a motivation behind it all. Which there IS. She isn’t killing people for sport (that’s for sure), rather it is from preventing peoples’ ambitions going overboard resulting in their potential downfall. And if they resist their ambitions being stolen they will face the Electro Archon’s judgement. And remember a few sentences ago where I talked about when their ambitions go overboard resulting in their downfall? THIS was an example! They have to earn it! And Ei as Archon is STILL an Archon, which means that people who challenge her stand little chance against her. Which was again pointed out by Ayaka that no one dared challenging Ei, not only because that she is super strong but also that people lost their will and motivation to fight back and obey her (or rather the puppet) against their will. And when the Traveler challenges Ei the second time by using all the ambitions of inhabitants of Inazuma (both dead and alive), this smile before the second phase starts indicates that she started to come into realization that the Traveler’s ambition have been acknowledged. Which was mentioned by Miko that people didn’t want her promise but rather her attention to people aka the Visions (ambitions). Look, the point is that even if I’m the only person alive who actually liked Ei and Inazuma Archon Quest, I would still hold my personal opinion would stand proud and loyal and would defend it till the day I die. And don’t you ever dare to downvote my opinion because it is illegal to do so. So even if you were to call me a heretic and an outcast to the standard norm, you better keep it to yourself if don’t agree. NO opinion is objective, only subjective, and both my hot take and your hot take are no exception.
yeaaaahhh... her lore is interesting... but... everything else has just been............ not well executed unlike the fire arc, where they actually gave her a meaningful well thought out story, the war actually felt like it was a war, while inazuma just felt.... like 20 people fighting 20 people, it was clearly rushed.
So at the end of the final fight she explains why she now thinks everything she did was wrong and why she's giving up on those ideas, and even the Marionette try to kill her because of that and you said it happend offscreen or the traveler just make her change her mind? You might need to read the archon quest and the legendary missions a 3rd time, but this time actually paying attention XD Maybe you think the must have a bigger punish, but i gotta remind you she is Inazuma's God. They are not going to beat her or something lol.
I agree that she was handled wrong.. BUT.. They do said that all of the information was false info because 2 out of the 3 clan were corrupted.. So, it is not becauss of her mostly, it is mostly becauss of the 2 clans manipulating everything.. Those 2 clans were in fact has some business with fatui.. Sure her redemption arc was awful.. But they do told us the reason she agreed to all of that, becae the people in charge for information is corrupt..
I get your point, but i still have to disagree. Raiden has not so great writing compared to the amount of screen time she has and the expectations we had for her, but there are worse written characters in the game. Namely: Kokomi, victim of tell dont show, one of the insert overworkt waifu characters here, Sayu, being tired isn’t a personality, Thoma is basicaly just malewife, Ayaka has the debth of a puddle, just to name a few. Traveler also barely has a personality at all. Paimon was reduced to hungry, rude and "Dont leave me!" Dont get me wrong, Inuzuma was not handled great overall and they messed up quite a bit with Eis writing, but there are worse cases. What i dont get is why so many people hate on her specifically.
Because Ei had far more build up compared to all these characters. Most of the ones you mentioned are one offs during Inazuma who were just there to do one specific action in the plot. Meanwhile Ei was hyped up since before we even showed up in Inazuma. She’s the main driving force of the story there so if people don’t like her execution it hurts far more. The aftermath of her huge actions don’t get any consequences at all and she’s redeemed far too easily by both the traveler and the people.
This was a really insightful video. I hundred percent agree. I already didn't like Reiden after Scaramouche /Wanderer 's story reveal but this video explained some parts of the canon stories I was confused about and made me despise her more. And although I do like Scaramouche's story as I think the point of his story is that he does still have a long road to any redemption, I am curious if you would ever make a video detailing how you would fix his and Ei's stories.
Valid interpretation. I also found Yae Miko's introduction too rushe and Kujo Sara switched sides too easily. Those were big opportunities for more story.
I would also like to point out that when Wanderer (can't spell his other name) erased himself it did change a lot of the story, because it turns out that he was a prototype for Raiden, so if he deleted himself then the whole story of Inazuma should have changed completely. Like couldn't we get a cutscene that shows us all of the changes of his removal because he was an important member of the Fatui and did do some things that were impactful. Hell, we met him in Liyue during an event so is that event no-canon now or what?
I think Raiden misses some kind of redemtion ARC and with her date everybody seemed to like her but i have to admit even the story ended with colors and Rainbows the build up and story was kind of interesting.
I'm not gonna repeat what the others have said about the reasons why but man, Raiden Shogun Ei is the only Archon in this game that is really terrible while the rest are amazing in their own way and I hope the Tsaritsa will be amazing as well
If evil, why hot?
he has a point
*Literally every single gacha game in a nutsell:*
Says to you who don’t know what friendship is.
Signora☠
She was so hot she became ashes😭
@@ZeHoovy2595 Signors is a villain the first time we met her and her motivation would remain this way until her death. So no, she doesn’t deserve redemption.
one of my biggest gripes about inazuma is that so much plot is implied to happen OFF SCREEN and we don't even see it, it just broke the immersion for me
Absolutely. We just got so much snippet of the vision hunt decree through the Arataki Rock and Roll event and explanation to what Ayaka was trying to discuss on Ritou Island.
The true problem with Raiden's redemption arc is that she never faced the consequences of her actions. No one even came to confront and to tell her that they lost their friends because of her for example. Plus She gained maturity offscreen.
@@SuperHaoken I guess the lesson is that powerful people get away with no punishment.
The 2nd story quest was not a good way of making her face the consequences of her actions? Or you want her to be beated by Kazuha or something.
@@charsasd7294 you know what? I wouldn't mind seeing people throwing tomatoes at her on the streets lmao
Do people forget that ei has already faced her consequences by fighting the raiden shogun for literally 5 centuries straight? She said herself that she had to do this task for the better of inazuma, and acknowledged her mistake that when time passes, people change.
Gotta agree with this one, Ei said she could die if she loses even a moment of concentration. Which mean she was risking her life for that moment. Also her redemption is probably a time paradox, that because she fought the puppet and rewrite the rules, she finally met her sister who planted the divine fox tree that protects Inazuma from gods remains that was killed on cataclysm in Inazuma
Hard agree, I REALLY don't like how she was handled when she had pretty decent potential.
There's a very good reason why I explicity say Raiden Shogun is my favorite character, not Ei
@@LeaveMeAloneFBI It sucks that you have to make the distinction tho :/
@LeaveMeAloneFBI
Too bad they're still stuck together like freaking superglue. One character is tainted by the other via association. That makes the both of them just terrible and rushed by default.
Also, yeah, Raiden had potential to be a decent antagonist, but that's flushed down the toilet by Mihoyo and the Genshin Devs because of money and profits.
Worst thing is: The Inazuma lockdown via thunderstorm is actually only removed after the SECOND story quest
@@theodorovaz4427 that one makes sense tho, because until then Ei is only appeasing miko and traveler by stopping the vision decree, but she’s not convinced she did anything wrong or changed her views about eternity.
Not saying it’s good storytelling, just that this at least tracks
The biggest issue here is the fact that Genshin has one rule: You can only become payable if you’re friends with Traveler. I call it the *Friendly Rule*
Shogun started off as a villain but Hoyo realized that wouldn’t work as a playable character so (apart from Inazuma already being terribly rushed) they hurried to “redeem” Ei with that mini date we took her on, along with fighting herself for 500 year. Thus the Friendly Rule remained intact
Because of the Friendly Rule, a subset of the community has been worried whether or not Dottore would become playable, as he is the only 100% purely irredeemable character we have in Genshin right now. I want Hoyo to break the Friendly Rule and make him playable, but part of me is worried they’ll take the “Good Clone vs Bad Clone” route and have the story revolve around the good clone taking down the bad OG Dottore. Obviously this would make zero sense
However, the bigger more apparent issue with the Friendly Rule is that it holds back potential character development from most of the cast. I can’t think of any genuinely conflicted relationships between any of the playable characters, they’re all just… friendly to each other all the time. That removes any chance at conflict, which could really make characters become more stagnant as more events come out
Big part of why HSR characterization is so strong is because they don’t follow the Friendly Rule at all. Seele with Bronya, Aventurine with Jade, Aventurine with Acheron, Yanqing with Yunli, Sparkle with anybody, the High Cloud Quintet, Dr Ratio with Aventurine, Fu Xuan with Qingque, all of these pairings are interesting to spectate cuz there are flaws in each one that lets them go beyond cordial greetings.
Closest I can think of in Genshin is Citlali with Ororon, but that’s about it. I’m not counting Yae Miko with Gorou cuz that’s just “Teehee boys your age are sooooooo intriguing 😘” followed by Gorou being flustered, rinse and repeat
The Tsaritsa will definitely be playable, but I know for a fact Hoyoverse will say she “wasn’t the true villain this whole time” so that the Friendly Rule can remain in order. Despite her literally allowing Dottore to do everything he does, they’ll twist it and find some way to make her innocent
TLDR: The Genshin devs won’t let you be playable until you’re “redeemed”
Although the Tsaritsa and the Fatui were set up as the main antagonists it should be noted that a lot of the current lore is setting up Celestia as the true villains especially ever since Neuvillette and the other dragon sovereigns were introduced
Very unpopular opinion, but if the game's actually following this rule, I'd much prefer if evil characters get killed off for real instead of being unnecessarily "redeemed" just to be playable (if "unfriendly" characters can't be recruited). Fan favorites shouldn't be spared if it means hampering the writing quality.
erm the wishing for characters to join travelers party is actually canonical and they have to be friends for that lmao, and no HSR doesnt have good characters and just as cardboard as majority of genshin characters, the only good characters i can think of are aventurine and sparkle that doesnt fall into a cliche and makes the cliche their entire personality
@@needabettername4357 Thats why signora is dead i guess
@@BirdCraftSSB this is first grader media literacy...fatui and tsaritsa were never set up as main antagonists just because they were the primary opposition of heavenly principles, they didnt destroy nations or killed people nor they kidnapped the sibling. As for current lore not even celestia is the true villians its actually The Abyss (again not sibling's Abyss order) and celestia is protecting humans from the ruined teyvat which was destroyed during Primordial one(Heavenly Principles) vs Second descender fight and abyssal corruption which is an alien force from outside that was introduced by Nibelung, King of sovereign dragons so the soverigns arent the good guys either and they were extremely tyranical to teyvat fauna and humans
I think that the biggest problem was that she never apologized to anyone and Miko never scolded her. I think that the story would have been better if she were unaware and the puppet was intentionally obfuscating information from her
Nah fr the fact she got off basically scot free and other characters like Furina who was actually in the right was getting death glared in her story quest like🥲
That’s why I like to think Scaramouche is the embodiment of the hatred + pain Inazuma people endured from Raiden since he actually lived with the Inazuma people, and the fact Wanderer still seems to not like both Raiden and Yae
Honestly one reason i love wanderer so much. He literally *wrote an essay* on inazuma societal issues. Even his arc has similarities to ei but just done so much better, the backstory dump in 2dmv, fighting an embodiment of a past self, learning to move forward, how his trauma connects to his behavior… literally all just done better
"Ok that's rich because they were murdered by YOU!" XD
I feel like the biggest disconnect between players and the NPCs is that vast majority of Inazuma never actually hated Raiden Shogun. They just hated the recent rules in place. Even Kazuha says he doesn’t actually harbor ill will towards what happened because even his friend died in an official duel that was fair; cause that’s how Inazuma works.
The only group of people that actually hate Raiden is Kokomi’s people and even she doesn’t think it’s good to act on it. Raiden Shogun essentially has more than 500 years of social credit with her people so nobody is genuinely calling for her blood.
Honestly I have more problems with Miko because it’s heavily implied she never tried once to actually talk to Ei and doesn’t actually care much for people. She just cares enough to not upset Ei because she cares.
Added to that, there's the old "the person at the top is good, but the underlings are undermining the good person" aspect to it as well, that you often see in dictatorships. And in this case, that was actually an issue, to a certain degree.
It's just a mess in general. Miko is a bad person to Ei and Inazuma for not once trying to talk to her, Kokomi is an idiot for enabling a rebellion against a god, and Ayaka is a manipulating cunt for guilt tripping us into helping her
You all say Kokomi or wanderer… What about yae miko, who’s whole role was to be a deus ex machina and also result in ruining kokomi’s whole arc just because she planned it all.
And I will say this, while early parts of genshin like Mondstadt and Liyue may not have the best writing, at least they didn’t do their characters dirty until Inazuma.
If Raiden Shogun has a million haters I’m one of them.
If Raiden Shogun has 1000 haters I’m one of them.
If Raiden Shogun has 1 hater it’s me.
If Raiden Shogun has a 0 haters I am dead.
Until my I draw my final breath I will hate Raiden Shogun.
Today I was Supposed to upload a collab with Flip, but the man is procrastinating super hard.
Make that 2
I hate her with every bone of my body
I have her with the blood that pumps through my heart
My workout fuel is raiden hate
But ngl she is just bad
She is a deadbeat archon
Made scaramouche and instead of attending to something akin to her literal child she threw her out there to do what he does i guess fuck him
Doesnt even do a daily checkup on her puppet to see if anything is a massive shit show even tho she can do that
Starting the vision hunt decree even tho the mental damage on vision holders losing their vision would be pretty big like its literally ripping the physical manifestation of their will from them
Then starting a whole war leaving villages destroyed and innocent people dead
The fact that you can see the collateral damages of what she has done with her own country is sad
Not to mention how sakomu decree made many tourists and business men stranded on foreign land with no way to return while the shogun army would rob them or take advantage of their poor situation
And her killing kazuha's friend is just a sprinkle on top
Not going further for now but the fact that after all this scummy shit from her side after you beat her you INSTANTLY GO TO A DATE WITH THIS HOE .
IM OUT.
Make that 2
I hate her with every bone of my body
I have her with the blood that pumps through my heart
My workout fuel is raiden hate
But ngl she is just bad
She is a deadbeat archon
Made scaramouche and instead of attending to something akin to her literal child she threw her out there to do what he does i guess fuck him
Doesnt even do a daily or hell even weekly checkup on her puppet to see if anything is a massive shit show even tho she can do that
Starting the vision hunt decree even tho the mental damage on vision holders losing their vision would be pretty big like its literally ripping the physical manifestation of their will from them
Then starting a whole war leaving villages destroyed and innocent people dead
The fact that you can see the collateral damages of what she has done with her own country is sad
Not to mention how sakoku decree made many tourists and business men stranded on foreign land with no way to return while the shogun army would rob them or take advantage of their poor situation
And her killing kazuha's friend is just a sprinkle on top
Not going further for now but the fact that after all this scummy shit from her side after you beat her you INSTANTLY GO TO A DATE WITH THIS HOE .
IM OUT.
That line smh
I do agree with you, but I skipped the whole story anyway
Now I want to see a video about Scaramouche after those comments at the end.
I think Kokomi's character was even worse...
I see your Kokomi and raise you Shenhe.
An intriguing story about her father and deals with demons and HoYo did NOTHING with it.
@@SageRuffinyou see I’d still say kokomi is worse cuz they gunned down every plot point that kokomi had and left her character in limbo
@@SageRuffin true but at least shenhe actually somewhat had an arc while kokomi was done dirty in literally everything shes been in
@@ninny_alt I don't think we ever saw her being a brilliant tactician. They really went "Tell, not show" with her. Having a booklet of all possibilities, and expecting subordinates to navigate the booklet during critical and tense periods is a sign of an inept, terrible leader.
And a "Surprise! I hired mercenaries!" does not a brilliant tactician make, either.
Yeah they say she's a genius strategist but I never saw her pull any strategic thinking in the plot. Don't know about her character story though
Atleast with Alhaitham he's at least shown that he can make smart decisions and no NPC is glazing him as some sort of genius.
I got both Raiden and her weapon during her previous run, in what was my luckiest pull session ever. She's definitely one of my strongest characters (DPS, battery, EM trigger, etc). I even liked her story quest where she got to speak to the ghosts in the ley lines, I thought it was a nice emotional beat. But I also 100% agree that it all felt very forced, and we really have no reason to forgive/forget her tyranny during the whole Vision Hunt arc. Which is why I take great pleasure making her tank most of the damage in fights. Not enough to kill her (I still need her to do her burst), but it's just a small bit of payback on behalf of the canon.
Ngl now that we have a chief justice in teyvat who just regained his authority i dont blame the ancient being hoyo should allow him to hold raiden accountable at its fullest and judge her
True in his voice line neuvi says that in a few centuries he would judge her but I don't see that happening now 😔
Agreed. Pretty much every reference to the archons is like "I will cast judgement! ...Oh, they're on a picnic? Okay, I guess it can wait."
Come on, HoYo.
Every new archon released since raiden makes her make look worse for being selfish. Venti helped traveler and mondstat and was selfless. Zhongli let Liyue be more independent. Nahida and traveler overthrew the corruption of the old akademiya and gave scara a second chance. Furina sacrificed her own happiness and humanity and created a facade to fool the people and save fontaine, she by far made the most selfless act shown in the story even though at first glance she was incompetent due to her acting. And finally Mavuika, she is the defenition of a hero since even though she asecended to godhood she still retained her humanity and understood what is best for Natlan and sympathized with Capitano’s desire to save Natlan. The writing of all the other Archons and their selflessness makes Ei make more selfish and a badly written character.
Even then you could argue that since Zhongli aided the fatui in order to test Liyue Harbor, Zhongli himself is not entirely selfless. He did everything so he could retire in peace - this motivation is for himself which is quite selfish, albeit well-intentioned.
His action at the end of the day is that he aided the fatui in Liyue Harbor's very possible demise following an already tumultuous time.
"Zhongli let Liyue be more independent" he literally conspired with the Fatui in an event that nearly destroyed the city because he wanted to retire, that's some severe whitewashing.
I'm waiting for that 45 paragraph response on r/RaidenMains 💀💀
Though to be fair, I do think the statement that we MADE Raiden reverse her policies is a bit disingenuous, since I'm 100% certain that even with the buff she still could've beat the Traveler's ass if she wanted to, and she was just hearing them out and was convinced.
Bruh I remember setting foot on r/RaidenMains asking a fun question abt Acheron and Ei, wondering if they found any similarities between the two
Bro those guys in that subreddit did not hold back 💀 they were PISSED at that question of mine
45? That seems too few paragraphs.
Scaramouche wasn’t redeemed. He kind of did the opposite. He chose to not be redeemable
Scara receives the good writing that Raiden never gets lol
While Scaramouche wasn't fully redeemed because his plan ended up failing, he did try to sacrifice his existence to undo his mistakes.
@@etheriousjackal5577You can’t undo the past. It’s just the records of it that get erased from the world and people’s minds make stuff up to fill the void created as a result. We see it happen with Nahida and Wanderer.
Edit: I think I misunderstood your comment, and that you meant the same thing by mentioning Scara’s plan failing.
@@FBl Yep that's why I said he wasn't fully redeemed. Since he hasn't really made up for what his past actions yet (Although I feel like that journey has just started)
Disagree, he became neutral.
It's ironic that they teases us in 1.1's story with the fact that we would approach a dictatorship hard to enter in Inazuma, with further insight once Kazuha released, only to revert at the end with no consequences at all. Even the environment story of Inazuma reflects the catastrophic state resulted from Ei's negligence and insistence in eternity. It could have been so good having her see the desastrous state of her nation and have that plant doubts about her mindset
Oh wow it does do you even play the game or was this shit video your first look
I do largely agree. Raiden was definitely mishandled, and Inazuma was rushed, but I do think one thing that is worth mentioning, and you did mention but didn't really seem to consider in your final verdict, is that Ei was explicitly afraid that what happened to khaenri'ah would be done to Inazuma. That was the whole point of trying to pursue being close to the heavenly principles. Her first story quest was absolute trash, hands down, but the second story quest had Ei recognize that what she did was wrong, and enter into a five hundred year long duel for the sake of trying to begin amending her mistake.
So the execution was absolutely terrible, hands down, and yes she absolutely was a terrible Archon. But I do understand what they were trying to do with her character, and because her second story quest gives me hope some of that potential might be realized in the future, I'm willing to hope future updates in the story will properly handle her character.
Too bad that 500 year dual was almost completely offscreen so we have no real sense of struggle to really feel anything.
@CodeTetsu I know! It would only have taken a single extra cutscene to actually sell the significance of that. 500 years of fighting the incarnation of your past screw up would have been a great way to sell she was trying to change, and all they would have had to do was make one more cutscene to show just how grueling of a challenge that would be.
@@CodeTetsu I thought there was gameplay where you only play as the Ei and she’s fighting the shogun puppet in that realm of consciousness within the story quest so it wasn’t all off screen
One thing that irks me about Raiden, which then got addressed with Furina, is that there’s never a moment where Raiden confronts the ramifications of her actions, in this case her negligence of running the nation and what it did to her people. Ultimately, that’s what happens when Inazuma as a whole ended far too quickly to get a cathartic payoff. Perhaps the worst consequence is that most pieces of Inazuma content released afterwards feels like the devs playing catchup to right the wrongs of the main story when they could’ve been used to flesh out the nation. Kokomi and Raiden’s story quests basically amount to epilogues, while Ayato serves to retroactively fix plot holes.
Raiden's Story Quests were nothing but damage control that did nothing because the damage was already done.
Might I also add that the Arataki Rock and Roll event added to the Inazuma arc by giving more depth to what was happening on Ritou Island and the overall events of the vision hunt decree.
"look how cute i am..i don't know what a kamera is"@@rickynguyen5108
I think this video is much better than your previous Raiden video which I remember leaving a long comment on a while ago. But I do still want to throw in a few rebuttals.
Visions affect people differently, in fact in Fontaine there's lore that even suggests that visions might ultimately be a detriment and that ascending to one is not at all what it's cracked up to be but that's besides the point. There are numerous people who have lost their visions and were fine (IE Itto) and even some who gave theirs up willingly.
Ei 100% didn't know everything the Fatui were doing either. You say that she was aware of the economic crisis, but if so she wouldn't have taken such drastic steps afterwards to correct it. Ei kicks the Fatui out of Inazuma (only Archon thus far to do this), opens the borders, and introduces numerous new decrees aimed at easing tensions (Kazuha's story quest) and bolstering the economy, local business and trade (Kuki's VL). If she knew and agreed with what was happening she wouldn't have gone to such lengths to correct it; remember, she was getting fed false info that everyone loved the VHD and the people were happy. It's why she's so pissed in her first story quest where she outright says that if they ever try to deceive her again like what happened with the Fatui she would kill them.
You said that at the end of the Archon Quest the VHD and Sakoku are reverted, but Sakoku isn't reverted until the end of her second story quest. That's actually kind of important because the entire idea of her story quests is Ei realizing how misguided she is and how she needs to throw her old ideals away and change, and not be scared of erosion anymore, which comes to a head when the Shogun turns on her and is resolved with the decree's abolition. The ultimate idea of the Shogun was that one day Ei would become so eroded that she would become a threat to Inazuma (something we know can happen, see Azdhaha in Liyue) so she'd seal herself away and leave Inazuma to the rule of a being who was immune to it.
I agree she was definitely misguided but it's unfair to say she only cares about herself (and where does Yae EVER say she only cares about herself, she says the tantrum part yes but she goes on in that same scene to elaborate that trauma has warped her view on things too). Ei is far from a selfish character; self-righteous definitely, but not selfish, and there's a major difference. A selfish character wouldn't make the decisions she did; if you want to pull up things Yae said, she literally spells out after the fight in 2.1 that in her pursuit of eternity she not only closed her eyes to her nation but herself, that what she was doing was tantamount to self-torture because she believed due to the trauma of what happened that what she was doing was the only way for Inazuma to persevere forever. "But eternity is far too cruel a fate for you, Ei... Not only have you stopped paying attention to the world, but you have stopped paying attention to yourself... It must have been terribly lonely here, all alone, for centuries on end." (no link because RUclips's stupid but you can look this up to verify it)
Also we're never told anywhere that Ei is conscious every time the Shogun uses Musou Isshin, just that her consciousness resides in it. In fact this is likely not the case since we find out later that the sword also housed Makoto's consciousness in Raiden Act II and she outright says she was unaware of everything that has happened. You could argue that it's different since that was a shred of Makoto's consciousness instead of the entire thing, but we don't know for sure. Also, the only vision holder we know of to directly die from her was Kazuha's friend, and that was the result of a duel before the throne where the losing party dies. Vision holders otherwise would be arrested or harassed, but we're never told the penalty is death anywhere.
As for the Scaramouche stuff, it's unclear if she knew he was conscious, since we're told he only ever even woke up due to an unforseeable error. She needed a being immune to erosion, which Scara as a being that could feel emotion wasn't. She thought forcing him to be the puppet would be cruel but also couldn't bring herself to destroy him, so she laid him to rest in the Shekkei Pavillion (this is against Yae's advice that she should have just destroyed him). It's another example of Ei doing what she thinks is mercy but not realizing the harm it would cause, which is on brand for her character up until then. It's also worth noting that in the CN version of the game she makes comments in her VL about him that suggest she actually had a lot of guilt and regret over what happened which is why she doesn't try to stop him. She also left him the feather which we've known from the beginning meant that her people were to treat him with care. Again, she was incredibly misguided, but she was doing what she thought was right. I don't think they retconned anything about this connection between them, she's not some evil force doing malicious things for no reason, she's a broken misguided warrior trying her best to hold onto the few pieces she has left after everything shattered.
Lastly, the card event. First off the writing in this event was horrible all around (Charlotte knows who Kazuha is immediately but somehow not a literal Archon) but the reason people fear Ei isn't to do with anything she did, but rather just her status and powerlevel which Yae elaborates on. If you were playing cards with the humanoid equivalent of a walking WMD who could nuke the country off the face of the planet with a snap of her fingers if she felt like it you'd probably nervous too. People are nervous around archons, heck people were nervous around Nahida even and she didn't have the reputation of being a war god with lots of kills under her belt.
Overall I think Ei is a character with legitimate nuance and depth and growth, more than a lot of Genshin characters, but she was the victim of a rushed and scuffed archon quest and a weirdly framed first story quest. If they had included the content of her SQII in the archon quest instead of the rushed ending I believe it would have cleared up a lot of the misconceptions around the character.
Even Neuvillette, the literal Hydro Dragon Sovereign, says (in a simplified way) that he'll wait to judge her when she stops sulking in her room. Screw you, Raiden. Screw you and your entire hellish island nation. Except Watatsumi Island, they're chill. 99% of Inazuma though, screw you, Inazuma.
Absolutely agree with you.
She isn't the hell you talking about
Watatsumi started the war though 😂. And Neuvillette would get clapped if he actually tried.
@whiteclover1643 And why did they start the war? And how would Neuvillette get clapped? He's the Hydro Dragon Sovereign and he's not Orobashi. Zhongli avoids him too
@@whiteclover1643 Yeah, let's just ignore the fact that lore states sovereigns are stronger than the archons themselves.
She is not evil but overly protective which results in the things she did.
I mean she lost Makoto and had to take part in a cruel war against the abyss.
That is why she thought her idea of eternity would be able to protect her people.
I love the Raiden Shogun and she could've been the perfect character for a meaningful redemption arc similar to what Sunday is undergoing in Honkai Star Rail. Instead the rushed plot has too many conflicting contradictions that post archon quest, it almost disassociates any blame for the war and suffering Ei herself had caused. We never see her undergo a significant change in her ideology, face public scrutiny from her own people for misleading them and meaningfully work with her people like Sangonomiya Kokomi to fix the mistakes she caused for a better future.
This problem extends to other characters like Sangonomiya Kokomi with her tactical genius in battles, Sacred Orabashi Bloodline, and her desire to work with the Shogun as an advisor being left as background lore hidden in scattered letters and character story descriptions.
I know this won't ever happen, but I wish Hoyo would completely redesign Inazuma from the ground up. The region desperately needs Natlan's Tribal Chronicles to flesh out places like Watatsumi Island which should have been an city comparable to Inazuma city itself and Natlan's war system for the civil war plotline.
Oh wow yeah Sunday is basically what they tried to do with Ei but actually done well. Villain who despaired seeks to create a false Utopis in a misguided attempt to prevent tragedy from ever occurring again by forcing their will onto the people they govern. But where Sunday had a sympathetic reason for his attempt and good intentions but was rightfully called out and stopped but also isn't immediately redeemed, Ei gets redeemed way too soon and honestly needs a rewrite to her backstory.
@@mr.protagonist5639 I'm glad you agree with my assessment. I would argue on your last point that Ei's current backstory is already perfect setting up a Sunday like narrative, with the loss of Makato, Kitsune Saiguu, Mikoshi Chiyo, and Sasayuri being the catalyst for her suffering. The problem was that none of these characters were ever shown or told in game as a source for Ei's motivations outside of the trailers.
Pulling from Natlan again, Ei needed what Mavuika had; playable pov flashback scenes where the player is shown her friends dying one by one and Ei herself reinforcing her messed up isolationist worldview for the plot to later challenge. Aventurine from Star Rail had this done amazingly in the leadup to his boss fight.
@chrisgarbutt1893
Yeah, none of Raiden's friends were ever mentioned or shown in the freaking Inazuma Archon Quest, the thing that was supposed to explain her motivations and all that. They only appeared in trailers, that's it.
Not to mention that the Archon Quest was rushed to hell and Raiden had a pathetic "redemption" arc that was way too soon and not earned. Like, her deceased friends were never talked about in her two Story Quests.
I think Raiden on her own is actually a solid character.
Yes, her reaction to Makoto's death was emotional. She made impulsive decisions, ones characteristic of a tantrum. However, rather than literally being a tantrum, I find it infinitely more likely for her desire for eternity to be a coping mechanism. She lost all her friends, and so she desired to make nobody ever lose anything again by keeping them in perfect stasis. Furthermore, by the very nature of her goal, she does in fact keep her people in mind. Eternity means keeping her own, lonely world as is while everyone else gets to spend time with their family for eternity. Her heart is in the right place, but she goes about it in all the wrong ways. I think it's actually really interesting how she's essentially lying to herself: posturing as some stoic figurehead of eternity when in actuality she's a broken person and a terrible leader (seeing as she's only had experience as a warrior).
So, yes, she's a fine character, **BUT**
Like her actions are never addressed??? Ever???? Okay sure trauma and all that, but that doesn't excuse her actions. Murder and depriving people of their ambition should make her people hate her. Yet everything is perfectly fine and we even go on a date with her (which was a jarring experience right after a duel to the death). One thing that's important to note is that we didn't actually beat Ei, the goal was to shake her will and question her ideals. And we *succeeded*... all for her to remain completely unchanged minus the vision Hunt Decree.
TLDR: Good tragic character but completely falls flat in execution because its treated like she DIDNT murder her people and steal their ambition
Wait you said her world of Eternity makes things remain in stasis but everyone else gets to be with their friends and family…but then she kills people’s friends and family. If she just stole the visions then fine, but then having PUBLIC executions for it completely contradicts the fact she shouldn’t want to instill this trauma on anyone else. At least if she did it in secret things wouldn’t be so traumatic, but she displays the visions for everyone to see as well.
@CodeTetsu THANK YOU, hoyo is so loose with Ei's idea of eternity that it all comes off as nonsensical
@@CodeTetsu The public execution was only for the people that did not want to partake in her happy stasis world. So no it doesn't contradicts her goal.
@@overlordshiina It literally does because she can just take the visions by force and imprison them. She doesn’t have to execute them for this goal. She also doesn’t have to do it in public either. She can’t grieve over losing a loved one and want people to be happy but then kill loved ones and make people miserable and implant public fear. She’s either a hypocrite or stupid
@@CodeTetsu Or her region is based on Japan, a nation that historically has had a rather low regard for human life.
Also worth noting that this idea of "spend resources on people who provide nothing productive to society" is a rather new one. Before tech advanced to a certain point, that just wasn't done much. You either put them to work, imposed corporeal punishment and turned them loose, or you killed them. The wealth wasn't there that you could justify it, not unless they were nobility or something.
yeah I kind of agree with that. and it also puts into thought that all the characters that we can play with is not completely bad. and what I mean is we don't really have an awful person or an evil one to be a playable character
I want playable dotore as an evil guy.
The irony around the fact that the same people who proudly boast about skipping it undoubtedly are some of the same people getting info wrong about Ei.
That said, I still like her, I just wished she was handled better because she was so interesting. She was the first Archon antagonist. She is one of the most powerful Archons in terms of sheer martial prowess. Her theme being Eternity is thought provoking. She created an immortal (or at least ageless) body and is essentially a spirit, very fascinating. The fact she can take Visions is INCREDIBLY interesting as she wasn't just able to take Electro Visions, but ANY Vision. Not only that, she was able to take away the Traveler's ability to use the elements. The Traveler doesn't have a Vision, yet she shut them down all the same. So, can she just null elemental powers in general? See what I mean about her being so interesting? That is a very dangerous ability and I wanted to know so much more about it. You'd think this power would be reserved for the Tsaritsa (and would fit her best, all things considered) or even the Unknown Goddess. But here it is, the 3rd Archon just casually using it. When we inevitably fight the Tsaritsa and Unknown Goddess, will they use this power, too? Be somewhat lame now given we have already seen it, the hype and sense of helplessness has already come and gone, and we beat it. I like Ei, but it definitely should have been one of their abilities over hers, but I digress. I heard something about villian characters sell poorly or something, so she had to have an immediate redemption. I will remember that. Because if The Doctor, someone who we see is pure evil, far worse than Ei, becomes a playable character, it means he will get redeemed. I shouldn't have to say why that is an issue. If people raised this much of a fuss over Ei, but are totally cool with the Redeemed Doctor, the hypocrisy will be more palpable than Scooby-Doo fog.
Mihoyo hired monkeys to write the inazuma story, I wish it was as good as the newest archon quests. I like how they learned from their mistakes but at what cost,I love Inazuma characters design ,but most of them have bad or mid writing and the story is very rushed.
eveyone got done dirty except for kazuha and he was released before inazuma
Bro they were in pandemic at that time and they had to rewrite the whole plot, what do you expect, them to overwork and die?
@@crowned67I don’t really see why them being in a pandemic meant that they needed to rewrite the story. If anything that’d be more of a reason to delay and work in the story more
@@amari7782 the pandemic definitely affected the workflow to some extend. I think Inazuma story has some good ideas based on real historical events. It's bad because they did not have the time to explain and expand the idea. Imagine if they did try to delay and flesh out the story tho (300 days Ayaka banner lol)
@@duckyymomo5714 bruh all they really needed was to actually flesh out Ei character and add more context behind her actions.
Hell literally showing why visions can potentially be a problem can overall help the narrative that’s being set up in dainsleif quest line.
Hell Ei herself could also sympathize with the traveler in this as well. Which is why I don’t know what they were cooking
12:32 literally her first story quest was the equivalent of going on a date with putin
I think they actually wrote her well as a character, but fumbled up along the way: even though she knew how society should work and behave, she actually had close to no experience with ruling her own people when Makoto was still alive. She was extremely introverted and would have probably become an extreme no life shut in self-weaponized soulless person if not for her sister constantly reminding her that she's not a tool.
So when she abruptly lost all of the few friends she had and her sister, and now had to take care of a whole ass country with extreme depression knocking on her door, you bet she'd mess up big time and screw things up. She wasn't meant to be a great ruler, and in that regard they actually succeeded in showing that.
But I DO agree that her redemption was waaaay to smooth. Like people from another country were messing around with the very land her and her sister fought and killed for eons ago, and she just went "Nah, I'd eternity". And now she's baffled by the changes on the street right outside her door ?Like... dear Electro god, WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE WELL AWARE OF INAZUMA'S STATE???
And in the end, they basically pinned all the blame onto her depressed state from 400 years ago (the Raiden Shogun) by saying "My past self was a beech for setting up such tight rules out of depression and shut-inism, but now I'm alright so everything is fine because I'm actually nice since I've learnt how to be a decent somewhat sociable god".
Now regarding Scara, I think putting him on sleep mode was her best decision from the last 500 years, cause she was in no shape to raise him and would definitely have screwed him over. Then again she should have at least retaliated against those who dared defy her "He's mine, don't you dare touch him" decree (the golden feather she gave him), but that's another way to show how her writing wasn't that consistent.
About the card game: it’s not like there’s a nearby island with a giant monument to the last sentient being to piss her off. Oh, wait.
Shogun 🤜🏻🤛🏻 Firefly
Worst written character with great concept
Dont ever post this on twitter, both of these characters fandoms are completely insane.
Dont put firefly anywhere near shogun LOL
I think the conversation Ei had with Miko during the end of the Arataki song event awhile back highlighted the main issue. Ei gained maturity OFFscreen. Her speech at the end of the event wouldve been so much much better if the Inazuma quest wasnt so damn rushed and she suddenly became good.
She really said
“Run me your shit FN” 😭
I remember the Focalor hate after act V people were even more mad then you (+ the Furina hate in 5.0)
They got mad a focalor using her mortal self to save a nation and then kill herself to see it through but when ei wants to be a literal turant because time exist and people die it’s different
@@Finalslashesit’s funny too cuz focalor plan literally doesn’t account for celestia just destroying Fontaine anyway so ultimately he plan was convoluted as hell and shouldn’t have worked
Gigachad Focalors fooling celestia with her plan vs virgin Raiden being afraid of heavenly principles
@@FinalslashesEi wasn't traumatized by the idea of time passing and people dying, she was afraid of the consequences that Visions and their connections with ambitions (and therefore, arrogation) would have because she has seen what ambition and arrogation have caused in Khaenri'ah and all of Teyvat during the Cataclysm, she saw a whole nation fall victim to it and lost all of the people she loved die in the hands of the Abyss and had to kill a friend hers herself because they were corrupted, saying that she became a tyrant because time exists is just dishonesty, you just want to excuse your hatred for her.
@@dazaiosamu7184 you mean the plan that could go up in flames even if she succeeds
I agree that she is poorly written, but the complaint about the timeline I think is misunderstanding the nature of the current state of Inazuma when we arrive.
When Ei abandons her nation to mope in her 'realm' this left a power vacuum that the factions in Inazuma competed over. While the vacuum was not apparent at the start due to her instating the Raiden Shogun, the puppet was an inferior leader who allowed the various clans to squabble with each other. This all comes to a head once the Fatui plan goes into motion.
The Vision Hunt Decree, The Sakoku Decree, and various other policies were recently enacted as a joint operation between the Kanjou Comission, the Tenryou Comission, and the Fatui. The Fatui had abused the Xenophobia and Elitism of the Kanjou and Tenryou Comission to set the stage for a bloody civil war. The Sakoku Decree isolates the nation while the Vision Hunt Decree gives Watatsumi Island an excuse to revolt, plunging an isolated nation into Civil War. Both Decrees were part of the Fatui plan, and petitioned to the Raiden Shogun by the commissions. These were not caused when Ei threw her temper tantrum, but instead abused the vacuum created by her leaving a puppet in charge of the nation.
I feel like inazuma would’ve been very compelling as the sixth nation, with inazuman chqracters being drep fed during the other updates
Yup, I don’t even need to watch, I mean I’m gonna, but yup I agree.
This is just me, but I feel like people are overly negative about her first story quest and simply it to a date when it constantly showing how out of touch she is with the world to the point a camera is outstanding. Then it slowly has her think about just how long she’s been stuck thinking about her sister and not going about things in a progressive way.
All that to lead into her second story quest where she literally puts her foot down and fights the puppet because it’s stuck in her old way of thinking that Raiden herself thinks is bad and unappreciative to the citizens that champion her.
I’m not saying it’s expertly written but i do like how Raiden’s faults are all in Scaramouche. They lost the most precious things they cared about and let that trauma dictate every choice instead of learning to live for tomorrow.
While I still like Raiden Shogun, it’s definitely just because I see what the writers were trying to go for, not because of what ended up being her story in canon. And admmittedly archon bias.
My interpretation is that Ei’s motives stem entirely from the trauma about the cataclysm 500 year ago. She basically lost everyone close to her, didn’t want that to repeat, and isolated herself to not get attached to people anymore.
In my opinion, the only reason her story sucked was because the writers were not given enough time for her to regret her actions.
And I think her character quest 1 could have fixed her character, if it was handled a bit differently, even if the archon quest had stayed the same. And I think the writers were also aware of this, because of how the first character quest ended.
Here’s my attempt at an idea of how it could have gone better.
Our hypothetical non-canon character quest starts with an indication that the Raiden Shogun is in a bad mood, with the storm around inazuma growing more dangerous. Due to this sudden situation, the traveler and paimon go to her to see what’s bothering her.
Since Inazuma’s vision hunt has been abolished by now, and Ei’s direction for Eternity has been significantly challenged, she is unsure of the direction her nation should go in, so the traveler and paimon suggest that she goes to see what Inazuma is like nowadays. She agrees to this, and the two walk around Inazuma city, but as time goes on, Raiden notices two things, First being that the world has changed significantly for the better, and Second being that her people seem to fear her significantly.
We can also get foreshadowing about the Tenryo comission being corrupt and stuff in this first part.
Curious to know why her people fear her, Ei asks the Traveler and Paimon about why her people see her in such a way, as a terrifying entity, rather than a beloved deity for guarding them from the dangers of the outside world, to which Paimon(because clearly the traveler doesn’t talk a lot) tells Ei that Raiden Shogun is responsible for basically all the major issues that were resolved during the Archon Quest, from the Vision Hunt, to the Civil War. Ei, bewildered by this, demands to see proof that her leadership of Inazuma has caused problems, to which ur traveling duo takes Ei to either the battlefields of the Civil War, or more likely to be effective, Watatsumi Island, where we show her how the people of Watatsumi live in poverty and hunger due to the Civil War which was caused by the Vision Hunt decree, and how the actions f Raiden Shogun led to the exact thing she wanted non one else to live through, the death of loved ones.
Here we can also come across some info about how something big is happening with the Tenryoo comission, which leads us to the final third of this character quest, Ei confronting the Tenryo comission.
This part can work basically the same as it happened at the end of Raiden’s first character quest in canon, where she eventually duels that one guy to judge him and the Tenryo comission, where she shows mercy on the guy she duels at the end when she wins it, showing that she has learned a valuable lesson about the way she had run things in Inazuma, and concluding with her stating that she’ll take on a more serious, and responsible role in governing Inazuma.
This last third being basically the same as the original character quest is my argument for why the writers definitely knew that Raiden Shogun’s character was not given enough time to develop.
I don’t hate Raiden Shogun, I just pity that her story was so poorly handled because they didn’t have enough time for that.
Tbh raidens intro and her being unbeatable and killing the diplomats of one of the strongest nation without batting an eye is one of the best power move ingame till date
Oh i knew frame 1 it was literally impossible for her to be a well written character. You know inazuma was just going to end in a wet fart where they dont handle any systematic issues and and just end the visions hunt decree. Which is like only the tip of the iceberg of stuff wrong with inazuma.
Oh i knew i was being lied to the whole time i just don't care. I just let them take advantage of me and inazuma because i could stop it whenever i needed to.
Don't even need to get started on how the resistance is incredibly ineffective and add literally nothing and are incredibly incompetent. There is no actual reason the good factions weren't working together. As well as yoimiya being really poorly written. Like i understand what they were going for but she talks over eveyone and tells them how to feel etc. it's not this well meaning person who just is really excited and talks a lot.
Watatsumi was so forgettable that most people already forgot that a dude died there and was supposedly our motivation to keep going
Ei knows the situation as much as the Shogun puppet does, and the former is completely cool with the latter’s decisions. But both were working with incomplete knowledge of the whole situation. Sara’s dad sanitized the reports that Raiden Shogun didn’t know her actions sparked a civil war; although the Watasumi stuff was a sh!t-show centuries in the making.
Funny thing is, it would have kind of worked if it ended more like a start of a redemption, many lifespans to repair the damage she did and do better since she is ya know... immortal,
And justify her existence out of jail and building trust with her p we ople again with another puppet
i think she as a character is exceptionally well written prior to the events of the inazuma archon quest. i think it’s specifically her ingame arc which was handled poorly.
i think it would have been better handled if we’d actually seen more of her in the archon quest. she’s in like 3(?) scenes or something and really should’ve gotten more screentime to properly flesh her out
Oh wow it's not like she has two story quest
@@eddieboston6540 yeah one of which was totally wasted because they wanted us to go on a date with her. the other one was incredible but it doesn’t change the fact that she has little to no screentime in the archon quest.
i don’t really see your point
Real but the fact Ei stans are still coping about it on Twitter is hilarious
It's like they wrote 2 people. One being a villain and another one being a kind of redeemable antagonist, the problem is that they don't mesh them together but instead alternate them making the entire character a confused mess. If they just picked one lane, it would have been much better
Raiden and Kokomi. They could have had better character development.
I don't 'hate' any playable genshin character tbh. But Ei still is my LEAST favorite of them and that's due to the writing. I hate how in the archon quest she's an antagonist but as soon as her first SQ comes, we're going on a date with her. Not only that but I think the people of inazuma were a little too forgiving of her and Ei had took no accountability.
I honestly wished she had stayed an antagonist
We can play Arlecchino story quest and she still shows her ruthless side. It's more like lack of reasons why Raiden accept traveler for no reason. Arlecchino accepts Traveler since Traveler accepts Lyney and co despite working under her.
This is further add salts when Kujou Sara doesn't get hangout or story quest.
While I don’t dislike her design as much as others do, I would’ve liked if Ei had more armor elements or just life Shogun-like design elements. Ayaka and Kuki (if you look at her hood) have more shogun-esque design elements than Ei had in either her current or past outfits
"Yeah hated her story and character" *proceeds to C6 her* 💀 the fandom kills me
If they let her be flawed and not completely morally good as a chart I think it’s would be much better. Maybe a bit more like Arlecchino but if she was in a deep grief and clearly not in a good state of mind
waiting for that scaramouche video soul
You know what, still no regrets. C6 shogun life
ayoooooooooo im on the member shoutout screen now !
Honestly, if Raiden wasn't an Archon, I would never pull for her.
I'll never get over how she treated her people and how she threw baby Wanderer away.
(Yae Miko down playing Shoguns actions is a major reason why I don't like her either...😑)
I haven't seen such resinless behavior since Hera and Hephaestus!😤🙄🍵💅🏽
No played down her actions and if you paid any amount of attention to the story you know what you just commented is wrong
there was a comment I read a while ago that basically said that Raiden's 1st story quest should have been what Furina should have gotten and vice versa, and I agree with it 100%. Furina's then should've experienced her 1st story quest as her 2nd one. Raiden needed to experience what the traveler was basically forced to do when they 1st got to Inazuma, which was to visit those whose visions were taken away. Learn the consequences of her actions, listen to the frustrations of her people, etc. I really don't know why they gave such her such a happy-go-lucky 1st story quest after she put her nation through a civil war. Also, the traveler ??? Totally okay with her after almost being beheaded by her ??? again idk man like damn you're a whole kinder person than me, that's for sure.
Although I do agree with a lot of the points made here, I do think you've neglected the grief aspect of her character. The entire reason she locks her self up is because she cant move one from that loss 500 years ago. It very much is her entire reason for doing the horrible stuff she does. Does it fix the story issues? No, I don't think it was properly shown since we learned most of it from her her teaser. I still don't like how they treat her redemption arc and brush off all the horrible things she's done, no matter the reasons she has.
She has one of the most interesting lore in genshin but hoyo fumbled it so badly 😭speaking of wanderer I don't like how Scara's backstory was basically like look it's Fatui again, they corrupted this poor puppet. It reminds me how they try to excuse Ei's actions by blaming Fatui. When you think about it both of them got away with everything they have done. Nobody remembers Scaramouche or his actions, at least people remember Ei's actions and she has to see the terror in her people's eyes everytime she leaves Tenshukaku.
I guess the apple doesn't fall afar from the tree 🤷🏻
I agree with everything. Also I hate the fact that everyone is just cool with her, she's like a superstar? Not even kokomi hates her. Heck it wouldn't have been so bad if she gave independence to Watatsumi and Kokomi could have made trade deals herself with Liyue or Sumeru, Natlan. Etc. Also the fandom pretending she did nothing wrong or downplaying how badly she treated her people just because they like to ship her with Yae Miko it's super weird.
For me, I on the other hand like Ei as a character. Not because of all the battle animations, but a personality I can relate to. You don’t know how much trauma of losing friends and family is like, so it makes sense that so much emotion can numb your responsibility of taking care of a nation. And before anyone points out that it’s an easy task of letting go the traumatic experience, NO IT ISN’T by the way. This can last for many years or even forever without help outside. If Yae didn’t enter the Plane of Euthymia without the Traveler’s help, then Miko wouldn’t have been able to woken up Ei up from her depression and the whole region would still be in its miserable state.
And I don’t mind her story quests being that terrible; her first is about experiencing the modern state of Inazuma while still finding it alien was kind of enjoyable, while her second feels like a good ending to her arch, having to battle against her past self and trying to lead Inazuma to a brighter future feels satisfying for me.
But the one thing that everybody forgets or EVEN neglects to mention is the fact that she acts more as morally gray rather than villainous. Which again I don’t mind, as long there is a motivation behind it all. Which there IS. She isn’t killing people for sport (that’s for sure), rather it is from preventing peoples’ ambitions going overboard resulting in their potential downfall. And if they resist their ambitions being stolen they will face the Electro Archon’s judgement. And remember a few sentences ago where I talked about when their ambitions go overboard resulting in their downfall? THIS was an example! They have to earn it! And Ei as Archon is STILL an Archon, which means that people who challenge her stand little chance against her. Which was again pointed out by Ayaka that no one dared challenging Ei, not only because that she is super strong but also that people lost their will and motivation to fight back and obey her (or rather the puppet) against their will.
And when the Traveler challenges Ei the second time by using all the ambitions of inhabitants of Inazuma (both dead and alive), this smile before the second phase starts indicates that she started to come into realization that the Traveler’s ambition have been acknowledged. Which was mentioned by Miko that people didn’t want her promise but rather her attention to people aka the Visions (ambitions).
Look, the point is that even if I’m the only person alive who actually liked Ei and Inazuma Archon Quest, I would still hold my personal opinion would stand proud and loyal and would defend it till the day I die. And don’t you ever dare to downvote my opinion because it is illegal to do so. So even if you were to call me a heretic and an outcast to the standard norm, you better keep it to yourself if don’t agree. NO opinion is objective, only subjective, and both my hot take and your hot take are no exception.
Natlan is the nation of war
Inazuma, hold my vision
yeaaaahhh... her lore is interesting... but... everything else has just been............ not well executed unlike the fire arc, where they actually gave her a meaningful well thought out story, the war actually felt like it was a war, while inazuma just felt.... like 20 people fighting 20 people, it was clearly rushed.
So at the end of the final fight she explains why she now thinks everything she did was wrong and why she's giving up on those ideas, and even the Marionette try to kill her because of that and you said it happend offscreen or the traveler just make her change her mind? You might need to read the archon quest and the legendary missions a 3rd time, but this time actually paying attention XD
Maybe you think the must have a bigger punish, but i gotta remind you she is Inazuma's God. They are not going to beat her or something lol.
I agree that she was handled wrong.. BUT..
They do said that all of the information was false info because 2 out of the 3 clan were corrupted..
So, it is not becauss of her mostly, it is mostly becauss of the 2 clans manipulating everything..
Those 2 clans were in fact has some business with fatui..
Sure her redemption arc was awful.. But they do told us the reason she agreed to all of that, becae the people in charge for information is corrupt..
My boy don’t do
This to me…
i THOUGHT WE WERE FRIends!!!
Don’t worry I still like video :D
I get your point, but i still have to disagree. Raiden has not so great writing compared to the amount of screen time she has and the expectations we had for her, but there are worse written characters in the game.
Namely:
Kokomi, victim of tell dont show,
one of the insert overworkt waifu characters here,
Sayu, being tired isn’t a personality,
Thoma is basicaly just malewife,
Ayaka has the debth of a puddle, just to name a few.
Traveler also barely has a personality at all.
Paimon was reduced to hungry, rude and "Dont leave me!"
Dont get me wrong, Inuzuma was not handled great overall and they messed up quite a bit with Eis writing, but there are worse cases. What i dont get is why so many people hate on her specifically.
Because Ei had far more build up compared to all these characters. Most of the ones you mentioned are one offs during Inazuma who were just there to do one specific action in the plot. Meanwhile Ei was hyped up since before we even showed up in Inazuma. She’s the main driving force of the story there so if people don’t like her execution it hurts far more. The aftermath of her huge actions don’t get any consequences at all and she’s redeemed far too easily by both the traveler and the people.
2:35 Elysian realm
I'll say it again.
Kazuha wanting revenge and being an integral part of inazuma would have probably made the redemption so good.
But no its shit
I've been waiting for this for a long time keep uploading your videos are awesome ❤
This was a really insightful video. I hundred percent agree. I already didn't like Reiden after Scaramouche /Wanderer 's story reveal but this video explained some parts of the canon stories I was confused about and made me despise her more. And although I do like Scaramouche's story as I think the point of his story is that he does still have a long road to any redemption, I am curious if you would ever make a video detailing how you would fix his and Ei's stories.
They didn’t handle it well but “worst” when characters like ayato (and a few more) exist is a stretch
Valid interpretation.
I also found Yae Miko's introduction too rushe and Kujo Sara switched sides too easily. Those were big opportunities for more story.
The amount of simps that copes she is the best character..
doesnt help that theyre constantly trying to wobbify and infantise her.. ugh
I really hope they make Tsaritsa (the cryo archon I don't know how you spell it) an actual good antagonist but I'm just coping at this point.
Oh hoho boy i'm.ready to see people cry about the pixel with boobs
I would also like to point out that when Wanderer (can't spell his other name) erased himself it did change a lot of the story, because it turns out that he was a prototype for Raiden, so if he deleted himself then the whole story of Inazuma should have changed completely. Like couldn't we get a cutscene that shows us all of the changes of his removal because he was an important member of the Fatui and did do some things that were impactful. Hell, we met him in Liyue during an event so is that event no-canon now or what?
I think Raiden misses some kind of redemtion ARC and with her date everybody seemed to like her but i have to admit even the story ended with colors and Rainbows the build up and story was kind of interesting.
good vid :d very true
This is my favorite dictator though
I mean........ she's their GOD, mortals don't have the right to question the actions of a being this powerful and ancient.
It’s funny when you realize most if not the entirety of the sumeru archon quest could have been prevented if it wasn’t for Raiden
Can you Please analyze Yae Miko next?!!!
You guys think Inazuma will get nuked by Snezhnaya because of Signora's death
Since killing a diplomat is considered an act of war?
nah..signora accepted a duel before the throne. she knew the loser would be executed. it was her own damn fault
@@sandroguzelj1234 alr alr
I would say Kokomi is worst, but Raiden have scales against her
Objection! Kokomi is worse in my opinion.
I don't know about worst, poorly written yes but there's definitely more poorly written characters
100% agree. And thank you for speaking to her neglect and abuse of her puppet child Wanderer.
Oh Mein Gott, I have not even watched your video, but I imagine you will have the allied bomber on early WW2: GETTING A LOT OF FLAK! XD
And no one. NO ONE. REMEMBERS THE BRAVEST S.O.B IN ALL OF THE LAND OF LIGHTNING. KUJO KAMAJI!! 👊😤😡
Look I don’t care how inazuma entire story was told nor do I care how raiden shogun was written off or how they portrayed her entire story.
U know we actually don't mind u taking break if u wanna
She's a God that doesn't see the perspective of human. Unlike other archon. That's why she doesn't give a shit and never think she's wrong. She's God.
No the story outright proves you just lied.
The church of Mavuika approves this message 🙏
How I describe her in a nutshell :all crimes no consequence
Raiden hide behind me quick!!!😭
They could have made her like her wwe counterpart Roman Reigns
I'm not gonna repeat what the others have said about the reasons why but man, Raiden Shogun Ei is the only Archon in this game that is really terrible while the rest are amazing in their own way and I hope the Tsaritsa will be amazing as well
I agree with this, but I really like her other incarnations Raiden Mei and Acheron, so I have a bit of a soft spot.
Yet another w vid.