I find that those who write the lore and those who write the actual story quest are vastly different. Reading lore about characters is like reading a Greek epic while story quest is like a 6 graders blog post.
They actually have different writters for different fields. For example despite world quest still tied to main quest/lore, they have different writer for main quest and world quest. So, it's possible they have different writer for lore too
Yeah, the lore team is just made of much better writers. The lead story writer just isnt as good as people under him, and the game suffers a looot from it.
Thats because Raiden was so flawed (as a person) that created a lot of controversy So this time they did the complete opposite, and created a Archon that has no flaws whatsover But the problem with Raiden wasn't that she was a shitty leader, but rather the problem was that her actions had no consequences and no one held her responsible
I fell the same way about Mavuika. The plan she made 500 years ago was a bit irrelevant because the Traveler and Capitano finished the job. All Natlan characters were in the supporting role in the story and without the Traveler, they might not make it. But yeah I see the connection.
People dislike Inazuma for *how* it was told, they don't challenge the fundamental premise. They engage with the story and themes and come to the conclusion that it could have been told a lot better, as a result of their fundamental enthusiastic investment in what's going on Natlan just feels like people didn't enjoy what they got, aren't invested in it and there's not some big outcry for how to fix it because it's a lot more fundamentally uninteresting, rather than being interesting but beefing it in execution.
I don't get people who say that Raiden never got any consequences. Raiden literally faced the consequences of her past ideals when the Shogun defied her and forced her to fight 500 years. People expect her to get crucified by her people when that was never a realistic expectation to begin with following Inazuma's worldbuilding.
Marvuika just feels so...bland. Like literal cardboard. I don't hate her, but I don't like her either. Because there's nothing TO like or hate about her. That's how boring they somehow managed to make her. How the actual hell did we go from Venti, Ei, Nahida, Zhongli, and Furina to her.
There are actually something to hate about her , she took so much screentime while having zero personality , players complain about paimon who infinitely more interesting than that cardboard
I understand why people find her boring, but I guess that's what makes a good archon. Loved by everyone, calm, intelligent, powerful, inhumanely flawless. In my opinion, she's the first archon we've seen that actually FEELS like an archon, and ticks all the boxes. Feels like a breath of fresh air to me, compared to what we've experienced with the other archons
Having to leave Furina to meet Mavuika feels like reading a masterpiece of literature through centuries, and then having to read an 11 year old’s first Wattpad fanfic
they wanted to portray her as the bakugo of the archons the symbol of victory they failed to show significant struggles that would've endeared her to the audience
I wish we knew WHY Mavuika was so strong for a human. What did this human do to become (theoretically) stronger than someone older and more experienced like the Traveler? It feels like she has plot armor
Inherited Ancient Name, basically the passing of power through all the past archons until now is what makes her so strong. She has their teachings and words of wisdom on hand
the moment someone becomes a Pyro Archon, they gain knowledge of the entire land aka they have access to all the information about the nation. also their inner flame(which is potential) gets awakened. Mavuika states that not everyone's potential is that high but hers turned out to be so, matching even the great Pyro Archon Xbalanque
uhh I don't know maybe because of the Divine Throne and the fact that she is the current holder of the Pyro Gnosis, a device with seized authority from the Pyro Dragon Sovereign, one of the original wielders for the element of Pyro across the whole of Teyvat period? You really think Celestia would have a weak representative human or otherwise? And what does this have to do with the Traveller? we've long since discovered that not only does he/she have fragmented memories but an incomplete skill set as well and has failed to overcome just about anything on his/her own without the help of someone or something and succeeded every time, that is plot armor. They already discussed warriors in Natlan with either little to no skill or a natural strength physically and spiritually as discovered in the latest story quest. It's no different than someone being talented versus someone who isn't. She was probably already a vision wielder and we know how powerful ancient names are.
Another option when she met her sister could have been for her sister to comment on how little it seems like Mavuika shows emotion. If her consciousness went through 500 years it must have been affected, just like you pointed out. It could have been a moment to say something like “you were born a human, are you still a human now? Living that long is not a human experience, being human means to face death” etc etc. It could have brought in more conflict, made her situation more tragic, and highlighted some interesting themes
A simple change I would have made to her scenes in the Archon quest: Her sister (while Mauvika was in the sacred flame) would go every night to pray to the flame and try to update Mauvika on her life. Trying to talk to the sacred flame to somehow reach her sister. So, when Mauvika meets her sister in the Night Kingdom, she suddenly gets a flash of memories long forgotten, specifically, of all the thousands of prayers her sister had made to her. This makes her break down, and we see a critical moment of weakness, of her having an urge to stay with her sister’s spirit in the night kingdom rather than face the dragon she knows has a high chance of killing her. Idk, just an idea. I’m fairly neutral on the Nathan quest, there’s a lot of things that were neat and some gorgeous cutscenes, but it really missed a lot of the character focus and mystery of Fontaine (my favorite region aesthetically, story, and character-wise)
We do see a bit of expression change when she does meet Hine. There is sadness there. My personal reasoning for this is just that she's really gotten good at bottling up her feelings over the years, maybe to the point of almost feeling numb? War might've done that to her. It would've been interesting to see more of her actual humanity show which I hope we can get in future Mavuika content because we do see her wish for people to just see her as a regular person and she does still have a love for the extreme sports still since she is a Scion of the Canopy. Perhaps her wishing to have a closer relationship with more of her people rather than being outright idolized could be a good story point. Also Natlan altogether felt more about the land itself and the people as a whole rather than individual characters. We saw the real time effects of this 500 year war on the nation. Thousands actually died. It's not a bad way to tell a story but yeah. Character focus kind of took a hit because of it. I say this with Mavuika being one of my favourite characters and really liking the Natlan Archon Quest btw, though I didn't do Mavuika's quest yet.
yesss if only she cried more, she needs to be super vulnerable and cry because thats what girls and women do. the fact that most of comments like these are coming from women is absolutely hilarious
@ …huh? Is crying upon seeing the ghost of your long-dead sister who you missed the entire life of not a scene worthy of tears? If not that, then what would be? Crying is a natural human act that both woman and men do. It’s inherently humanizing to see a character cry. What’s your point here? That I’m being misogynist by wanting a woman to cry? Or that crying is inherently female and somehow I’m upholding a stereotype by wanting to see Mauvika cry? What a strange comment.
it's weird how abyss is shown to mimic living stuffs since 5.0 and can learn knowledge of natlan leyline, they even created overworld boss that mimic other bosses, which is a perfect build up for a final boss that mimic the closest ones.
It doesn’t help that the Abyss didn’t feel threatening at all! We’ve been folding Hilichurls, Abyss Mages, and Rifthounds for years now. The only new abyss enemy mimics other enemies. They gave us of a taste of how dangerous the abyss can be with the Narwhal in Fontaine, but didn’t expand on it at all. All I kept saying to myself in the AQ was “Y’all are losing to this”?
Liyue characters: Put aside their differences with the Adepti, fight hand-in-hand, and sacrifice their homes to protect Liyue after their beloved god was assassinated Inazuma characters: Form a resistance army, create an underground network to help people escape a fascist nation, stage a coup against a tyrannical government Sumeru characters: Devise a plot and break the law to celebrate and free their imprisoned god despite constant surveillance and mind control Fontaine characters: Take action according to their own strengths to save the people of Fontaine from a cataclysmic event, put their god on trial for not putting in the same effort Natlan characters: Say some really nice and encouraging words from the sidelines
@@justinbailey1669 Traveler did nothing in Fontaine. legit u can remove them from the plot and nothing changes. meanwhile in Natlan they cured so many people from abyssal corruption and even helped to take down Eroded lord of the primal fire it feels like Traveler did the most in Natlan out of all the nations
@@motemo8413 traveler isn't meant to take part in the main events anyway. their main reason for exploring teyvat is to find their sibling and be a witness because their memories cannot be tampered with from things like irminsul
@@vilfs their goal hasn't been to find the sibling since we will be reunited quest. they are exploring Teyvat to see the truth of this world that made Abyss twin take the path that they did
Feels like the B team wrote Natlan/Mavuika. This can't be the work of people who made Sumeru/Fontaine. And as much as people hate aranara quest, atleast the Archon quest of Sumeru was S tier. As much as you hate the desert, the secrets/lore of the pyramids were worth it. The world building was crazy. How did we go from Fontaine/Sumeru to Natlan? Such a downgrade. While doing Nahida's birthday quest, when they were getting a family photo at the end, all I could think was how attached I felt to the Sumeru characters. I ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT THEM. EACH ONE OF THEM. Then I reflected at Fontaine cast... Furina, Neuvilette, Lyney, Arlecchino, Navia, Wriosthley, Clorinde, Sigewinne, Lynette, Ferminet, Chiori.... I really felt connected to every single character. I liked their story, liked their quirks, liked their designs, their playstyle. I wanted MORE FROM THEM. Like what they're doing now how are they? That's how well written they were, we forget for a second that they are fictional characters. But then I look at Natlan characters. I FEEL NOTHING. They are so surface level and shallow. Ideally I should have recency bias since this is the latest update and I should be in the honeymoon/hype phase. I spent my hard earned primos to pull them. Yet I feel no connection to them except Kachina and Ororon. If some of them were unalived in the war I wouldn't have cared. That's how bad Natlan characters' writing was. The blind Hoyo shills downplay this fact a lot and this is very bad cuz the writing will get worse if you don't criticise them now.
I'm so glad you mentioned the Sumeru characters because a lot of these waifu obsessed shills try to downplay the mid reception of Natlan and make it seem like only the "husbando pullers" are hating it due to the lack of male characters. A lot of "husbando pullers" I know from various online spaces love Sumeru's characters male AND female because they're written well. They have and develop character relationships that we actually see onscreen that's why they are received well. Sumeru characters has a whole ass literal "found family" theme going for it.
Saying hoyo shills made me disregard everything you just said, also fuck Sumeru's story and it's characters, Dehya and Wanderer were the only good characters it had.
Honestly I didn't understand why HYV made Mavuika a human, because nothing in her personality is human. Unlike Furina, where we saw the burden that the role of a deity can have on the human psyche, Mavuika, on the other hand, doesn't have this problem at all. There was the animation dedicated to her, but even that clearly didn't do justice to her human side, because she recovers from her pain very quickly. And that's my first problem with Mavuika: she has no adversity. She was destined to win from the start, everyone accepted her plan without flinching, even though it was said several times that it was risky, and the rare times when people tried to put spokes in her wheels it ended very quickly. Mavuika has no weaknesses, her moments of pain or difficulty are super fast, everyone says how cool and badass she is...in fact she's a Mary-Sue. EDIT: For those who tell me that Furina and Mavuika didn't share the same burden, it's false. Remember that if Mavuika's plan turned out to be a failure, then the entire people of Natlan would have been decimated. Mavuika could have lost her nation and her friends by betting everything on a plan that turned out to be random from A to Z, because if Chuychu hadn't died, Chasca would never have awakened so Mavuika's plan wouldn't have worked. And that's the problem: for such a risky plan, Mavuika suffered very little from the possible disastrous consequences that it could have caused, she was never afraid to tell herself that her friends and her nation that she is supposed to protect and lead could have died because of her, she was always very confident despite the number of deaths in act 2.
@Sasha-cb8mt The animated short was so bad. It was so vague that you cannot even tell if Mauvika is struggling for 500 years or if she is just bored out of her mind. Her face doesn't express sadness or regret or tears, just a blank stare that can mean anything. Hoyo really does do a lot of things so vaguely that one persons interpretation is just as valid as the others. I can't feel bad for her if she doesn't show clear signs of sorrow. Blank stare doesn't equal sorrow any more than it does boredom.
Way to out yourself as someone who didn't read the fucking story with your eyes open. Mavuika doesn't have this problem because she hasn't been alive for 500 years. She was alive 500 years ago but then gave herself up to the Sacred Flame in order to be reborn into the future. She hasn't been alive for 500 years, it's still her regular age. If you'd like to know what 500 years is like for a normal human to endure, you have her little trailer where she takes her bike through 500 years of history and it's uncertain to Mavuika when she'll stop and be reborn. We see her falter and struggle to find the courage to keep this going, unsure of how long it'll take. She's not a Mary Sue, you're just a retard.
Not trying to defend Mavuika or anything but an important part of Furina’s burden was not just that of being a human deity, it was the immense stress of having to convince the whole of Fontaine that she wasn’t human. She had no way to prove she wasn’t human, no powers, no hydro authority, so the only thing she could do was play a character. Not only that, but she could not confide in anyone because if anyone knew the real Furina the whole of Fontaine would be in danger. Even though she was surrounded by people, constantly praised, always in the spotlight, it was all meaningless because none of it was directed towards her but instead the person she was pretending to be. She was truly alone. 500 years of solitude would take a toll on anybody, but Mavuika never had that burden. People knew her as the pyro archon but there were also people who knew her as Mavuika.
@@zukodude487987her voice doesn’t either.. I think the studio failed the interpretation of Mavuikas character and voice atp (no hate to the Va cause she can definitely do a great job and put a lot of emotion into her!!) but sadly there was no emotion in her voice 70% of the time
@ I think it is an issue with the game in general where almost every character story is its own contained story with no actual substance or no clear direction and very generic. They are like filler, nothing meaningful and very generic and doesnt contribute to their development. A lot of character lines are also very generic like how Yanfei says the laws can be *good or bad*, like yes the laws can be good or bad, that is obvious. I can say the weather can be either cloudy or clear and both are good and bad in their own right, because it is self evident an thus meaningless to say unless you are talking to a toddler. It is just meaningless word chatter for the sake of having the characters talk. The characters need more direction and contribute more to the overall world or story. Mauvikas animation was a clear example of filler and keeping the story vague. I think they are doing that cuz they dont want the players to feel like the story is gatekept behind a youtube video, but it has the side effect of making the videos worthless to watch much like Naruto filler is worthless to watch.
She's basically the MCU Captain Marvel of Genshin: 1. Powerful 2. Barely has any human flaws 3. Shallow character development 4. Aided by the "Power of Friendship" Decent but nowhere near as interesting as Nahida or Furina.
She feels like 12 year olds first ocs; will never make mistakes, tragic backstory is only for a decor, not internally woven, loved by everyone and their action isnt challenged to the point of changing/progressing said character Tldr; very shallow
@@raviolibirb8009 nah, mary sues channels narcissim and have to be the focus of the limelight at the expense of all the other characters. If she was a Mary Sue Traveller would not have been such a hero in Natlan. She's just op and boring.
She is not perfect, but she has no flaws and no quirks. I can see somewhat that being flawless was the intention but there's a lack of dynamism in the writing that kinda makes it all fall apart anyway. I understand that it's part of the meme too but the fact that they try and force it down your throat a bit, during her quest is a bit weird kinda, it exposes a flaw with Natlan somewhat and it's kinda how, it feels a bit confused/wonky, in terms of vision and direction. I think it's just how they wanted to go about making the direction they chose as digestible as possible.
Ironically enough, there's a character in HSR who seems to be a perfected version of Mavuika: Feixiao. And this fox general has more flaws than perfect human Mavuika. I've thought of this and discussed this with some people but two details stood out to me. 1) Letting the lady has small flaws 2) Have the lady delegate and depend on her friends, peers, subordinates. Feixiao is introduced as an undefeated general, but we are shown little things that ground her. She's rowdy and hot-blooded so she leaves diplomacy and espionage to her more discreet and level headed friends Jiaoqiu and Moze. While she's peerless in combat, she consults strategy with her peers Jing Yuan and Huaiyan who are both better suited for tactics and logistics. At the climax of Wardance, she entrusted an important task of holding her back as she's in berserk mode to Yanqing, Yunli, and March who are younger and not as powerful/experienced. Feixiao brags about how she lacks worries but Jiaoqiu's injuries clearly affected her and weights on her despite having her ailment cured thanks to his sacrifices. Then we have her funny quirk of being a lightweight and violent drunk. Mavuika tho? It's all her one-woman show. It's all her plans that she works on herself but there was little to no hiccups or oppositions towards her. Nobody gets to question her because the writers don't let it happen and if someone tries then Mavuika proves her point. Yay! She doesn't let Kinich have his moment, just take his sword to have her limelight. What a great leader. Her stated flaw of being bad at painting? Oh look, she's perfectly good at it. Like damn, we might as well just send her to defeat Celestia since her plot armor frees her from even a funny quirk.
I agree with you on Mavuika (I can't say anything about Feixiao because I don't play HSR) except on her blocking Kinich. Capitano is the first of the harbingers, with the harbingers down to rank three being on the level of gods. Kinich is strong, but letting him fight the Captain would be so dumb for her to do, just letting him walk into his death. Capitano vs. Kinich probably would have looked like Raiden vs. Signora, and Mavuika needs him alive since he's one of the six heroes.
@@HighLevelPlayer funny you mentioned that, because just so happens in the quest that HSR lets the aforementioned young ones Yanqing, Yunli, and March to have their own time to shine and actually do significant damage to Hoolay, an ancient nemesis and former enslaver of Feixiao, even if they struggled against him. Feixiao only appeared last minute after the trio had their spotlight especially as culmination of Yanqing's character journey and later had her "battle of the mind" as her own moment so nobody outshine the other. In other words, the game coulda let Kinich and even the other heroes have some scenes fighting Capitano. Doing their best but ultimately outdone by the First Harbinger, but at nick of time saved by Mavu. They just. Kinda refused to let Kinich have any significance ig.
It's crazy how Mavuika is supposed to be the only human amongst the Archons yet other Archons feel so humanlike and have emotions but Mavuika seems the farthest away from human emotions despite being a human. She is perfect in everything. No vulnerability, no weakness, nothing. Bravo writers 😂
@@angellexgamer5416 Mavuika is the only human archon (except from Furina, however she was always perceived as a god by her people anyway). The way I interpreted Mavuika is that she was so strong and actually godlike in order to contrast the archons before her. Venti is a drunk, zhongli retired, ei was a tyrant, and nahida was imprisoned. Mavuika contrasts the other archons by actively playing a role in her nation and leading her people. She acts like a god who supports her people and leads them despite being human. To me, that adds to the overall point of Genshin and hoyoverse games in general where the “power of humanity” is so important. It would make 0 sense to make her seem weak or vulnerable.
I like to add onto Angel kitty's comment. We already saw her insecurities, fear and lonesomeness in her animated short. Seeing your friends die, knowing you're outliving everyone and your family. 500 years of waiting and being in her own subconscious was enough time to wallow again and again and then find her resolve again to fight for her Nation. Why I like Mavuika is because we finally had a competent archon who could lead and fight alongside her people. No internal conflict manifesting itself in her existence, no mentally cooked person, there was no saving her because she didn't need to be saved. If it felt like we had no time to connect with her it was because it was purposefully written that way. She had no time for herself up until the end finishing her painting. It's the first nation that felt like a nation and challenged the gods.
@@Angel-Kittyy it's fine if it's with the people, the same way furina did. but we barely get to be with mavuika this AQ that even if it's only the traveler and mavuika. she still has no flaws. there's no human who doesn't have vulnerability on them. A perfect cardboard character is still bad character writing/
17:30 honestly having a shapeshifter villain that DOESN'T try transforming into the heroes friends is kinda crazy to me. It's like the most basic shapeshifter trope and they didn't even include that
@@icebear4325 nah, ei still has multiple, somewhat more distinct traits (or flaws). sucks at cooking, struggles to give up power, clueless about modern day stuff, etc. mauvika picked up painting and supposedly mastered it in ~1wk.
There have been theories circulating where a lot of people genuinely believe the archon quest was rewritten and with the way it went I’m starting to believe it as well
They removed the Prologue chapter of the official Genshin comics in the Chinese website early last year (assuming when they started developing Natlan) so it checks out. That's the chapter with Venti and Venessa with some bits of Natlan lore.
i feel like part of mavuika's traits that they could further develop is her savior complex and how she always goes the extra mile to assist everyone with their problems and issues, and rushes towards danger without hesitation or consideration. something that might come off as reckless and unnecessary, maybe even unwise cos she always resorts to punching her way through things without planning further ahead or considering the consequences of her actions or how it might go wrong. smth like Korra if anyone's familiar with her character which would fit well with mavuika's status as an archon and the expectations that her people set on her to fight back the abyss and save the land.
Except she wasn't brash and was well aware of the consequences of her plan and how much of a hail Mary it was. She just considered the consequences of capitano's plan to be worse, something she thought about before he was in the picture
@isdrakon9802 they're some professional lore writers. i'm sure they can figure smth out. im just a fan tryjng to make the best of what we were given so take it with a grain of salt xd
Every archon has only gotten more complex as time has gone on. Each new archon since Morax has had some conflict with their nation’s ideals and it has reflected in their character arc. Ei’s writing was awful, but you can definitely see some crumbs of what they were trying to do. Her arc is about learning to let go of her need for control because of her fear of loss and change. She must come to recognize her people’s will and respect it. Nahida’s story ties in to the themes of Sumeru and Dendro as a whole: coming together and sharing in knowledge and community. She has to learn to believe in her power and come to acknowledge her compassion and strength by all of her newfound friends. (and i think it helps that, for me, sumeru had one of the best casts in the game. The way all of the unrelated characters and story beats came together to support her in the end was just ~chef’s kiss~.” Furina had by far the best story out of all of the archons. She is in appearance the god of justice, yet her situation in life was nothing but unjust. Forced to play a fraudulent role with no end in sight, always having to put on an act because if anyone realized the truth, all of Fontaine would be destroyed and her efforts would be in vain. The way Hoyo made sure of the way we would react to her at first - assuming she’s out of touch and moronic - and the way they kept that momentum going all the way up until they dropped the 4.2 update and we learned the truth was amazing storytelling. I think her character carried the 4.0 story, and is why so many remember it fondly. And at last we have Mavuika. On first glance, her story is moving and tragic. She gave up everything to put a plan into action to save her homeland - and soon the world - from utter destruction. Her character is marked by maturity, optimism, and loyalty to her people. Her belief is that the shared experience of Natlan’s history - the sacrifices, the glories - is the most important thing of all. This puts her at direct odds with Capitano, who, despite them sharing the same goal of saving Natlan, believes the heart of a nation are the people themselves. This conflict was so interesting, and I was looking forward to seeing them butt heads and test each other’s ideals. *cough* *cough*. The theme of Natlan is: No one fights alone. I’ve seen people criticize it, call it weak, but I disagree. The story isn’t about the archon, it’s supposed to focus on Natlan and its people. Their entire culture, for thousands of years, has been centered around fighting the abyss. They eat, drink, and sleep warfare. Naturally the story should center the tribespeople because this is their story, not hers alone. Instead most of the main characters get sidelined in the stadium while their archon and the traveler fight their final boss for them. So fucking lame. Mavuika’s conclusion arc should’ve been taking a backseat and trusting her people to fight the abyss dragon themselves. Maybe she could’ve dealt the final blow or something, idk. The way Hoyo wrote the 5.0 story, everything was leading up to all of the playable characters teaming up and fighting together, but i guess hoyo realized that wouldn’t sell as well, so they changed it. I have no clue, I’ve been scratching my head since 5.3 dropped as to how they could’ve dropped the ball on the finale this badly. In conclusion (or tldr): Every archon’s story mirrors the ideal of their nation. Mavuika’s arc bummed a lot of us out because Hoyo wrote her role to be secondary to the main cast, a leader and mentor figure, and then pulled an UNO reverse card at the end and sidelined everyone else to give her arc an unimportant focus that rings empty in the face of the story.
Even if her people had the power to fight Gosoythoth (which they likely didn't), they literally couldn't even enter the Night Kingdom to approach him cos of the sheer amount of Abyssal contamination. Only she and Traveler had the resistance to get close enough to fight and defeat him.
I can kind of get behind this actually but It had been established that she was the only other one capable of staying in the Night kingdom for a long period of time besides the Travler who could basically just chill there because they are completely immune to the abyssal corrosion. Overall acts I, II, IV were great, act V was ok and act III made me want to off myself
"No one fights alone" While 6 playable characters with Visions where who are clearly powerful than the NPC and Saurian ghosts that appeared later on--- were outside while delievering whatever their power of friendship speech to the Traveler and Mavuika😂😂
@@ArmorFrogEntertainment If Kachina had not understood what the disappearance of the flame meant, that Mavuika had called the flame to her to step through it, and started singing the ode of resurrection, I don't know that Mavuika would have been able to bring Traveler back when Goysosoth killed him/her. It is implied through the whole story that the ode grants the willpower of the people to the archon, to bring back what is lost. I don't know, I felt like that was enough. Some people complain that the singing was lame because "the power of friendship" but it is a firmly established mechanic of Natlan.
I really hope they do better in snezhnaya, natlan as a whole just felt so out of place, I did pull for mavuika but the only reason I did is because I liked her design, but the thing is I wouldve liked mavuika as a character if she wasnt the pyro archon and instead someone else from another nation that couldve fit her design better. Her whole design felt so out of place with the whole biker theme that I fail to understand why they couldnt have just used the design she had in the trailer that released (with the ancient heros). They couldve done so much better with mavuika, and natlan as a whole , but instead it just ended up being so dissapointing and im afraid that snezhnaya will end up the same (and the tsaritsa too) but only time will tell ig
I hope so too! but the good thing is that Hoyoverse switches developer teams every Nation So we at least know that the same people who worked on Natlan won't work on Snezhnaya, so there's hope
What I find frusturating is that a lot of this could be resolved if they had just implemented the lore from the “Sunset” animation into the main game. People shouldn’t have to watch content on RUclips, outside of the main game, in order to fully understand a character. It is quite literally just a stupid approach to a character. Like, imagine if they never told us Furina was suffering for 500 years, and she was just a “human version of Focalor”, and the only way to figure it out was to watch a short on RUclips. That is absurd.
I mean, maybe itll get expanded on in game with her second sq? But even then we kind of already know what we know, it feels weird having to wait like 5,6 months just for them to talk about it again.
@@GhoSt-mu2io They did this with Firefly in Star Rail. Honestly, I don't watch the starrail shorts. If it mattered, it'd be in the game. Pissed off a lot of Firefly simps because I called her a basic waifu and people try to go "noooo she like lost a bunch of friends and stuff" really? Then why isn't it in the game? Sorry, I'm not doing homework for another game. She's presented as a basic boring waifu in game, so she IS a basic boring waifu in game.
Like you said in your previous video, Natlan Archon quest is filled with missed opportunities. Mavuika characterisation is one and there's so many little things that adds up leaving a kinda "meh" result at the end. They did managed to kinda redeemed the Inazuma arc with Raiden second quest. Let's hope for the best (thou I tend not to with this game any more since it allows me to not being truly disappointed =P).
The story and characters were bland, but the exploration and the region is amazing. Ochkanatlan in particular. To me natlan Is still the third best nation after sumeru and fontaine
You helped put the finger on part of why I felt so uncomfortable with the final act of natlan, I also wasn't a fan of the traveler-glazing during the story either honestly. US getting a parade and a crown and SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS? while the archon of the nation who really did most of the fight is trying and failing to slink off to die was so DEEPLY weird as a choice, not to mention the even weirder choice of having the old man recount the archon quests we JUST went on to some kids and having the kids conclude that the traveler is EVEN MORE AWESOME THAN PERFECT ARCHON. The "retelling" scene went on way too long I kept waiting and waiting for it to cut away and just going "Why..." I wasn't a fan of Mauv having no struggles, but the traveler themselves barely struggled either. Natlan was just going to parties and getting praised over and over, the war arc was interesting but in the context of the no-struggle nation falls a bit flat sadly. Even the interlude resists every impulse to allow even the npc characters to struggle by showcasing magical abyss-PTSD that's disabling and hugely impactful and.... fix it with one sip of a potion! It has side effects, but they aren't shown, deliberated about, or considered really, AND the cure is foisted onto some of the characters without any sort of informed consent, overridding any of their potential wishes for recovery. I think if the natlan tech incorporated the big thing that was unique about their nation THE SAURIANS it would've gone over way better imo, but since we can pick up and use the saurians in the overworld I guess they decided incorporating even scales or feathers into the tech to make it fit in with the settings wouldn't stand out enough to make people buy the characters or something? or somehow going for some wild "anti abyss" glowy stuff could've worked. For that matter it's wild we mostly got human and dinosaur enemies when the abyss has been attacking forever and ever, no new abyss monsters? Ah well... weird choices overall for the nation.
I…. I really wanna redesign mavuika… she’s just.. she doesn’t feel like an archon. Edit: I started redesigning her immediately after I posted this comment lol
@@joslin4384same + she also looked like someone who is active from Natlan (similiar style of clothing to NPCs, not this “Natlan’s got talent” show of every playable dressed as if they are from a different game entirely, not even just from a different nation of teyvat, lol)
The world building had holes in Natlan. Not just the tech, the effects of war was not present in the open world. Very inconsistent and Mavuika’s character building was done haphazardly through self exposition and game external media (animation). Also, it did not build on the information we had about Natlan pre version 5. You can say they only had an idea at the start of development but the standard for other nations wasn’t there. Being OP is a marketing tactic to compensate with the characterization and story imho. I hope they go back to basics otherwise it’ll be another Game of Thrones.
@@normalbirid79it’s basically biggest miss in TV history. It started off as an amazing story due to its characters and lore of the world and by the last two seasons all characters were butchered by stupidly bad writing
while I agree with you but it really rubs me the wrong way how people have such a wrong perception of natlan's technology. Natlan as a nation isnt as technologically or academically advanced as sumeru or fontaine but natlan is where multiple dragon civilisations existed and they had tech for even space travel. Moreover only xilonen has made only a handful of things from the things they excavated , that too runs using phlogiston only.
@@MrSquishy0 It has nothing to do with Furina being an archon , it's just the character writing quality that has taken a complete shift not just the archon who is the main focus but the entire cast , Natlan as whole is major downgrade in character writing aspects
Your critiques are all totally valid. I had a LOT of problems with Citlali too. We're told she's experienced, but shown immaturity, as though 25 year old writers and VAs struggled to imagine a long life and any wisdom it might bring.
the problem is that they know how to write wise characters, see zhongli, kazuha, ayato even hutao, they just chose not to do so, and I have no idea why, if they wanted to go that way there has nothing to stop them from making citlali young and inexperienced while also having a lot of talent
To the same end, a lot of wisdom comes from interaction, the people that we consider wise have spoken to lots of people on innumerable occasions; citlali is very clearly a hermit who cuts everyone off to protect herself from grief with the traveler being the first since her friend from so long ago that it took an entire questline to find out one her life's greatest achievements because no one could verify it. This would lead to certain immaturities when interacting with people a lot more closely than you've been used to for at least about a normal human life or 2. That said. she does seem calm when the stakes are high and the cards are down but I do agree that it would feel mice is she actually had some words of wisdom to impart in those moments, unless she did and I just missed them
While valid, it’s not Venti, Furina, Miko, or what we’ve seen from Alice radiates maturity either. They really just do and act as they please and then act accordingly when it’s time to do their job before continuing their hobbies.
@@ApatheticNomad That's an excellent point. She's supposed to be socially stunted. This could have been conveyed in English with better casting. I love Skyler Davenport as March 7th, but they sound lost as Citlali.
It feels like hoyo wants to compete the tech and gameplay of wuthering waves when in fact genshin has its own aspect that players love. Hoyo really failed to see this
Thisssss! You can tell Natlan was their experiment to find a way to freshen up the game due to the competition. I’ve been reading comments from the CN side and even they find natlan to be extremely lacking.
@@Josh-qt5zi yeah.. hoyo seems to think that making less cool male characters is going to make game more popular.. nope.. genshin became super popular even in west bcause it wasnt the usual waifu-only gacha game
It's fine if some characters don't have standout flaw or quirk, I can enjoy more simple ones like Robin from hsr and Tohru from Fruits Basket. Genshin has its fair share of mellowed capable characters too, but what makes Mavuika stands out from them is that they spent SO MUCH time to glaze her. Damn near every moment she's on screen there's going to be someone praising her or just build up how awesome she is. The marketing for her is quite aggressive too. It affected not only her character but also made her relationship with others so boring. She has her flaw, but the way it's presented doesn't look like a flaw. And every character has to make sure you focus on how good she is at everything. Seriously why is she good at every hobby she picked?
I hate the Genshin kit trend where characters can have some of the cleanest looking normal attacks, only for their gameplay to not use them whatsoever. I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels the same way about Mavuika’s playstyle, especially after seeing how awesome she was in the fight against Capitano. To me, my feelings of Mavuika can be summed up by putting her character artwork alongside the other Archons. The other Archons are all characters. Mavuika is a function tied to her having a motorbike.
THIS.When you pull Mavuika you are pulling her BIKE,not her.How much of ideally challenged of genshin team to think that yeah Mavuika loves bikes,we should glue her ass in the bike for 3/4 of main attack animation,when in the story animation she look like raw god of war that slice,punch and kick enemy and capable of flying like superman?why not using badass movement like that?i mean they can copy dehya burst moveset,make it a switch state and controlable,giving it more badass sfx,vfx and bigger number dmg and she will be more like literal god of fcking war not god of bike
This is why I moved from Genshin. The characters don't feel like characters. In all honesty, how much of the characters we are using fully? I would say not much. Most of them are skill bots or ultimate bots. 9 out of 10 characters you rarely use their normal attack.
Regarding your questions about the lore: no, she was not conscious during these 500 years, and as such did not have all this time to prepare herself. This is shown by a few things in the world, including her not remembering her sister's deeds, or locals finding strange that Mavuika looked just like the statue from the Archon of 500 years ago, among others. As such, she is designed as having become perfect at nearly everything in the span of the maybe 30 years she had to actually live, which is indeed quite questionable. I've read almost all the lore available since 5.0 and have found no explanation given for this, either. EDIT: to clarify, the knowledge that the Sacred Flames grants to the Archon is described as "knowledge and memory of this land," by Mavuika, which, given the context, described information (mostly about the inital rules of Natlan and how the Pilgrimage works) rather than practical skills. On another topic, I'd like to thank you for being one of the few who do speak out on the matter! The Mavuika hype train has had a tendency to drown out the valid criticism on version 5 lately, and it's refreshing to see that some still expect a high standard from the game. Really appreciate your video essays for their honesty and accuracy.
She wasn't fully conscious but it definitely wasn't a blip and she's in the future. Also the sacred flame grants the knowledge and experience of the Land and Previous Pyro Archons to the current one
I’m not sure if this was in the game, though there probably was some detail about it, but on the wiki the sacred flame serves as a data bank of sorts?, which allows new pyro archons to obtain a vast amount of knowledge memories from previous archons and the land itself. While she was competent, I don’t think she was perfect, which unfortunately doesn’t really come across in game.
@eden8498 I remember that as well, and would have liked to see Hoyo explore just how badly that could mess up your head. Pretty much all of her emotional dissonance could be explained in a satisfying way by tying it back to, "congratulations, you now have a bunch of emotional connections to a enough dead people to fill a stadium, have fun trying to relate to regular people!"
@@MorgenPeschkeyea, this is exactly what I was hoping too and I'm really disappointed they didn't go there because it would actually make perfect sense and be a little, well, humanizing. Something that could engender empathy in the way Citlali's purposeful aloofness is explored in her story quest.
@@MorgenPeschke This would've been so SO good, and it would've made her a much more compelling character to me imo. They should've shown a bit more emotional turmoil, more mental dissonance. She's supposed to be "The human Archon", and yet, she feels like the least human of them all...
Out of all the archons, she is the ONLY one I don't like based on personality or backstory. Which sucks for me since she's visually my favourite character. Everything about her feels just like how saurusness feels about Act V of the Natlan Archon Quest: a dropped ball. She's ridiculously inoffensive; she feels like she was carefully designed and manufactured to be sold as a product and a product alone. To appeal to everyone without having anything unique about her. Aside from her involvement in the Archon Quest and the backstory she was given, I can't find one thing about her that stands out.
Ooh I think you hit on something there, for their ups and downs and power fluctuations the other archons do feel more like people than the "human archon" mauvika... How stoic she is, how she never struggles, how she "looks cool" while fighting essentially, will not lose to anyone etc. It sounds like selling an action figure more than writing a compelling story about a character, even most superheroes struggle and fail and have moments of defeat and weakness, no matter how they come back or win in the end, they still HAVE failures that affect them in some way. Mauvika felt like the blandest type of shounen writing to me and I wasn't here for it. I hadn't dug hard into her lore or stories but the idea that there's still relatively little there is so disappointing.
what she can do as a character honestly for me, more than makes up for her bland personality and everything negative in between. All i've been hearing in these echochambers literally just revolves around her personality and story, completely neglecting how powerful she is as a character and her positive traits that were also completely overlooked. While i do agree with some of them, i do think the hatred is way too forced sometimes to the point where the slander from some people makes it seem like she's a good-for-nothing character. Which is totally unfair for players who don't care much about her story and just wants to enjoy her as a character.
@@SinclairXOXO well ppl are still too biased with the natlan hate trend going on. I mean yes they have a reason to criticize natlan but i feel like it is an overreaction
The thing is, capable and kind, nearly OP and perfect archon/character can be interestingg We literally have gojo satoru the perfect fighter/mentor somewhat that is portrayed to be very powerful. Yet he doesn't feel one dimensional bc the author gave him several traits that humanizes him (being very childish, a bit of a douchebag, and super annoying towards ppl around him)
Mavuika could have been very ambitious with lofty ideas (like Itto) but they might have run out of adorable flaws 😅 everything is taken so they just gave her the messiah complex
Even in Genshin, you have characters like Zhongli and Neuvilette who fit a similar mold. They are immensely powerful, have upstanding character, and yet are way more interesting as characters compared to Mavuika.
@@XylonLionheart neuvi's writing was pretty emotional. I wasn't interested that much in him during the first AQ (understandably so) but neuvi's characterization also succeed due to his dynamic with focalors-melusine and navia. On top of that he's given the silly traits which we all like, rating teyvat's waters and the story of rain with hydro dragon being sad. It's all these elements that are missing from mavuika tbh. Dynamic character relationship + silly traits for the cherry on top
@@MrSquishy0 ppl hate gojo bc he's annoying (as far as what I stumbled upon in that fandom) so that's a testament that his writing is effective Like furina who was supposed to tick you off due to her incompetence.
You know it's not because natlan has futuristic tech, for me the actual problem is that it doesn't blend in with the rest of the world and its world building
Yes. Usually the futuristic tech is from ancient civilizations or is limited (like in Fontaine). In Natlan Xialonen builds modern tech like it's nothing.
@@DiaryofNatalieRose Hello there, speed reader! Did you know that Natlan used to be inhabited by an ancient civilization of dragons that wielded advanced tech? Did you also know Xilonen studied the ancient tech they left behind and is especially adept at her blacksmith job because she is well-versed in said tech?
Agree with that. It's aesthetic issue for me, not gonna lie. Did they really have to go for "modern" bike instead of old model ones. That'd blend in better. Or maybe futuristic ones with wheels that aren't connected to the main body. That fits with the rest of the old civilization tech we've seen so far. But instead we get "modern", and that ruins it for me
@@EnderBroadcast and these dragons "advanced tech".... were motor-bikes? why would a dragon ride a motorcycle? in teyvat? in NATLAN? like there are no highways anywhere and the terrain is never flat. Like what?
They even almost answered the question at 6:38 in Chasca’s quest. Clearly they thought about how having this special tech could assist regular humans/humans who couldn’t fly with saurians specifically, but then it was just kind of… dropped after that.
Lore wise, the unrivaled technology of Natlan is something I just can't brush off... like their only explanation is "oh phlogiston + xilonen goes brrrr" but like?????? A flying bike???? A flying gun???? A defying gravity skates???? Like we heard how revered Fontaine's tech was thanks to the years upon years of geniuses that worked in the institute that we can track back to René and Allain... yet Xilonen *ALONE* shatters all these creations in her short life span thanks to phlogiston??? How on earth would she not be one of the most famous people alive in all of Teyvat???? Yet everyone's response is "is a cool flying gun just get over it", "bikes are cool... don't think about it too much"
This omfggg The closest character when it comes to invention and tech/research is albedo BUT he got a thorough explanation abt khemia, rhinedottir and so on. The fact that he himself is the product of khemia is also another thing. But xilo is a deus ex machina for all of these tech they have it's just downright lazy writing
welcome to natlan (disneyland) nation of war and dragons based on ancient meso america theme, we have : -Dude who has pixel pet, loli who ride a beyblade, cowboy elf who floats with giant gun, girl who use roller skate and use DJ board -Archon that wear latex and ride motorcycle somehow and actually a mary sue -dragons? more like basic pokemons -wartorn nation and tribes suffering? more like sunshine and rainbow and everyone is partying 24/7 -power of friendship
dont mind her design but her personality just feels so bland to me and it feels like hoyoverse desperately wants to sell her ( ik they are a company so revenue is important to them but for her they seem to do so much)
All the haters may go to hell. Mavuika is one of the best character of the game. After Furina, she is the most lovable Archon. She is always ready to sacrifice herself for her people. She has the perfect personality for a perfect Archon. She is the ray hope in darkest time. Mavuika ❤
@@chrisevans9882 This video and comment section is not the place for a comment such as this. Because you're worshipping this character because of your personal tastes and perceptions everyone else is wrong?
@@dovemaidenWhy not there vocalizing there opinion. Just because it's not the concensus here doesn't mean it should be said I think a bit of positivity in a (Let's be honest) overly negative section is good Honestly what people need is hindsight. People are fresh from the experience and are reaching out for negativity It happens every year
@ Disliked her in the earlier quests - I get what they were going for, but for me someone having trauma doesn't justify them lashing out at others. Definitely a MUCH better-written and more rounded character than the others, but just one I disliked a fair bit. Her tribal quest was fun though, and definitely did enough to make me empathise with her more. Gonna be pulling on her rerun though, rather than spending primos right now!
I wish I liked the Natlan characters more, Mavuika included. So far I’ve only pulled for Kinich (Spiderman grapple go brrrr) but even then I mostly pulled because I liked his gameplay not because I fell absolutely in love with him the way I did with Lyney. Here’s hoping the next region will be better
Pulled some characters out of boredom (u-u). Interesting gameplays so it's primo worth. I am not happy with Mavuika and Citlali as characters, but boy they help my account atleast..... I need to get Xilonen for Wrio team next.
Made me think who among the “boring” characters we have are even more interesting than Mavuika, an archon: Ayato? Albedo? Alhaitham? Cyno? All massively competent characters but there’s mystique, humor and personality. Even Raiden has her quirks. I’m happy for those who like Mavuika. At least they’re not disappointed. 😅
Im sorry but as an albedo simp, seeing albedo categorized as boring is kinda funny to me No offense, i get his character isnt for everyone. But to me he's genshin's no.1 most interesting character personality and lore-wise (Dont forget he eats spider and has dysfunctional family across the teyvat map lol)
Biggest plot hole in Natlan is..Do they remake the Statues of the 7 whenever a new Archon appears? 🤣 this is why this didn’t work for me at all..entire time I had that thought in my head. Also it would’ve made more for a compelling story if Natlan divided between Capitano and Mavuika’s plan tbh. It would make an interesting plot line (and If I am not mistaken something like that was shown in Chaska’s CQ aka tribe thingy). I hoped they would play into Mavuika’s overconfidence at some point and make her slip up since A LOT of things did change in 500 years and that mistake would split Natlan..but nah she ended up being perfect until the very end
Honestly this is a really big plot hole when you consider how previous nations handled it. In Inazuma, Makoto and Ei were twins, so the statues could have just been Makoto the whole time. In Sumeru, Rukhadevatta and Nahida looked identical after the former shrank in size, so again, the statues could have been both of them. Fontaine is the first time we see where a statue seems to have been changed when the role of Archon was passed over, because it's clearly Focalors and not Egeria. But we also never really see Egeria clearly enough to know whether they looked significantly different. But then what the heck, Natlan? Shouldn't the statue be Xbalanque then? If they change the statue for each Archon (which seems unrealistic with how the statues are clearly Celestial in nature), then Kachina wouldn't say it's a coincidence that it looks like Mavuika. Did they lose they ability to change how it looked because Mavuika was in stasis? So like, fuck all the Archons who came after her in that 500 year period, right??
@ ikr? 🤣 That was what I was thinking entire time. So everything all other archons did for 500 years (Including our goat Murata who didn’t even get a mention) just didn’t matter at all because Mavuika is biblically accurate and correct archon after all 💀 like bruh..The most annoying stuff I always hated in any anime is when EVERYTHING goes to the “plan”, like Teyvat changed a lot in 500 years my guy and so did the Abyss especially since we know what mimi-floras are a thing. Also how tf did Mare Jivari disappear 20 or so years ago when Bennett was found there as a baby and he is clearly not 20, or an adult for that matter 🤣💀
I actually think most of the statues were made 500 years ago. I don't think they were there before, like during the archon war. Mavuika was already the archon 500 years ago, Ei had a twin still was the archon during that time, Nahida, Venti, Furina, and Zhongli archon. Read somewhere they weren't there after the Archon war, but I'm not really sure
@@HerrscherOfFate-x8p it would make sense that Statues are made after Archon War ofcourse, because thats when “7 seats were opened up” (I forgot who said that it was probably Zhongus). Also thats when they supposedly got their respective Gnosis (Ik Archon war never happened in Sumeru, Deshret refused gnosis so Rukkha got it because she was last God alive in Sumeru, and Natlan obviously they didn’t have Gods only Dragons so far If I am not mistaken) Now when I think about it, it seems Celestia chopped up 3rd Descender after (or during Archon war) then 🤔 I mean they needed to make Gnosis out of their body…
Something I want to add in terms of Mavuika’s design is that every single (literally each and every) Natlan character has tattoos on their bodies, feathered accessories, patterns, fun and interesting colors, charms, and if they are female, at least one braid in their hair. Maybe it was me making expectations out of nowhere, but Mavuika has NONE of those. What a missed oppurtunity. She could still have the flame hair, but the biker outfit feels so so so out of place.
I honestly feel as if they had the whole quest unplanned except the self sacrifice of capitano and they just tried to make everything lead up to that moment, the fact that they made it poorly is another thing entirely
the reason i skipped her was mostly the whole having too have natlan characters for her to work properly i understand she doesn't need them but as someone who hasnt pulled for a single natlan character it just not a good feeling.
For me, mauvika doesnt feel like an archon. I actually forgot she was the god of specifically war. Each archon has a divine ideal that they worship/obssess over, often to a fault. The opinions than an archon has about their ideals are rather unique compared to the rest of the cast. Mauvika doesnt obssess about war the same way venti obssesses about freedom. She wants to end a war. And her opinions on war are the same as the natlan characters, traveller and the player. Its immediately understandable why someone would care about stopping a war to help their people, but its not obvious why someone would care about contracts or eternity. One idea i have for the pyro archon's ideal of war is justification/recompense. After watching her people suffere, losing her friends and family and being caught up in her 500 year plan mauvika is desperate for success and cat handle defeat. When she sees someone be wronged she pushes them to take retribution. She finds battles exhausting but she goes over the top in each one cuz its her belief that she's fighting until one day theres peace. Eventually learns that the abyss cant be fully stopped which she takes terribley whilst denying the reality of the situation. Her story would revolve around how she feels entitled to recompense after suffering for so long but having to grapple with reality that her hardwork and pain wont be fully rewarded and that she has to find peace even though hard times are never gone for good.
I hate that the writers have some very obvious pet characters that never get called out in the story. Furina got nasty glares after the Poisson disaster, but characters like Arlecchino or Mavuika just get nothing but praise. I wouldn't dislike these characters so much if at least the narrative acknowledged whenthey did something wrong.
Right remember during the sumeru saga how nahida was constantly insulted and belittled by the sages because they thought so little of her and she herself constantly self ridiculed cause she thought she couldn't even save her people, that subtle nuances made me like her more. Mavuika is a strong person and that's literally it
Turning Arlecchino into "mOrAlLy GrAy" when she's clearly been described as evil by Childe was probably the 2nd worst writing decision. Only to be beaten by this disastrous region
HUGE AGREED The worst part is that, even if there are bad rumours and nasty glares, it’s not shown - it’s talked about in their soulless texts of dialogues of NPCs (like those two fatui in front of Mond waypoint after any AQ or just any fatuus in general in cities upon asking about things transpired in the nation they’re stationed in). Like. At least do this during major quests!!! It’s not like we aren’t forced to walk incredibly slowly while listening to characters and p*mon yap, put on some visuals and show crowds whispering to each other with their text bubbles!!! Bot for hoyo thats really too much to ask for 😔
@heisansberg2347 I'm pretty sure it's because of the Chinese censorship. I don't think ur allowed to have a playable character that's evil (correct me if I'm wrong). It's probably why I didn't like her character, even tho she was my most anticipated when the fatui trailer came out. It bothers me how she's liked by the traveller and other fontaine characters. She runs an orphanage that basically churns out soldiers for a highly radical and violent military group 😭 HOW R WE JUST SKIPPING OVER THIS!
Mavuika is one of the best character of the game. After Furina, she is the most lovable Archon. She is always ready to sacrifice herself for her people. She has the perfect personality for a perfect Archon. She is the ray hope in darkest time. Mavuika ❤
Believe me, they will reconsider their opinion when they learn to read and think adequately. Now it is fashionable in the community to hate Natlan and everything connected with it, breeding general negativity. And "negativity" has always been a synonym for this "community".
Genshin character writting must be very hard and exausting,as writers are forbiden from doing certain things with characters (like giving them love intrest aside from hinting they're traveler fangirl/boy or breaking the status quo,or giving them negative traits) Another thing is i cant wait til Mavuika concept arts leak,and it turns out they were way more unique and intresting
fuck are you saying? you wanted a conquescador design for Mavuika? that'd be the most racist thing they could ever do. Making an Archon the colonizer??
Have you never seen the toreador/carnival versions of Mavuika? I was a big fan of the toreador design and very bamboozled when she was finally revealed to be a biker chick.
And people thought i was wrong for thinking the quests were kinda boring. I held off hoping the final chapter was where all the interesting twists and turns come in and nothing. Mauvi was flawless, almost no struggle or depth. Even the animated stories made no meaningful contribution to her character, you could skip it and miss nothing vital in the story or character development. She didnt even seem all that sad when her people died. Natlans story was just, we are at war with the abyss and we push them back in a final showdown with no struggles, the end.
Did we play the same missions? Natlan was losing and had been losing the entire time. It took all of Natlan, The Fatui, led by the #1 Harbinger and the main character to win.
@oojimmy52 Yes Natlan was losing, that is how any story goes, things are bad and the new hero on the block comes in to save the day, mr.to-my-knee oh sorry i meant Tumaini.
i was waiting for the twists as well, there were so so so many interesting things mentioned at the start of the quest that could have been developed into one final huge plot twist.
great video. I feel exactly the same way about her, it's actually refreshing to see so many of the character problems highlighted in such a concise video. Natlan genshin feels to me like a victory lap, the devs think they can no longer fail and are throwing wild ideas at the wall thinking anything they do will always work. Mavuika suffers from most of Natlans problems but packaged inside a single unit.
The most underwhelming Archon for me. I expected more, I wanted more, and I got so much less. She feels weak as a character overcompensating in the kit power for lack of depth. There were so many things that I wanted from the pyro archon and I feel like they underwhelmed and missed the mark. Yeah I can see where people would find her visually attractive but she lacks depth and I don't know if that was planned or if it happened by accident. Did I pull for her? Yes I did, but only because I had the wishes, was almost at guarantee hard pity and she reminds me of Fenghuang of Vicissitude Fu Hua from HI3 even though she's not an alternate to her either. Mavuika just doesn't hit the right touches for me, and I think you touched a lot of why. She really was very Mary Sue - she lacks depth and is the most underwhelming archon of the lot. That makes me sad - the archons have always been something more, something larger and yet here she without any flaws and unable to seemingly do any wrong. There is no failing when Mavuika is involved. Moment of truth? I didn't think she was going to perish in the archon quest - I called that someone would take her place because they never gave her any consequences throughout the story. Everything poured off her like water off a ducks back. I had no need to worry for her because everything seemed to work out effortlessly. She didn't do much of anything just waited for her heroes to wake up while mastering every and any skill. Mind you part of that "I had no fears for her" came from their inability to build any tension by 1) not giving her a flaw and 2) not giving any high stakes pressure moments as they went through. She was the embodiment of the arc - flat with moments of actions and emotion, but mostly just walking and sitting around and doing nothing and not being able to emotionally invest because there seems to be no consequences for the perfect archon ever for anything. "She made her sacrifice and now all is forgiven and she is all powerful" - that's not how good tales are written but you do you HoYo.
She feels like a complete Mary Sue It's ironic to see The "HUMAN" Archon without any flaw,weaknesses at all The rest of the Archons feels a lot better (in both character design and writing) than Mavuika tbh
What are they better at? Mavuika is much closer to humans than the other archons. That's the whole point of the character. That she's a human with divine powers, not an absolute deity. Which archon would stand up for her people and lead them into battle as a leader? Nahida? Venti? That's ridiculous. Archons are emotionless egoists, they don’t care about people.
@@kianamain-sp”Archons are emotionless egoists” have you actually played the game? Venti wants his people to be free so he doesn’t rule them, but he is always helping them behind the scenes. (Also, have you forgotten about why they became the Venti we know?) Zhongli willingly passes the torch to humanity but is always ready to step in and save them if need be. Nahida was done wrong by humans yet she still loves her people and helps them. Focalors sacrificed herself for the sake of her subjects. Ei is the only one who fits the description, but she at least tried to redeem herself. Then we have Mavuika with the brilliant master plan of taking a 500 year long nap while Natlanease suffered.
I hate this term, but unfortunately Mavuika is a Mary Sue, nothing she brings to the table, her personality is just being "incredible in everything she does and an admirable person" that's all, There is absolutely nothing bad about her, no flaws, no problems... Venti is a God with responsibility issues and alcoholism, Zhongli has adjustment issues and is broken, Ei's a social weirdo with dictatorial tendencies, Nahida is innocent and inexperienced and Furina is human in her entirety, How is the Pyro Archon, who was supposed to be the humanity of the group, the least human among them?
Mavuika is Rey, and Mihoyo reduced Capitano to another Kylo Ren who saves her in the end. She's apparently supposed to be this Himeko, and should've died because of it.
Haven’t watched the video yet but I already wanted to write a comment. Mavuika feels so… perfect for a human. TOO perfect, with „no“ flaws or anything.. Like others are saying, she feels like a piece of cardboard. She doesn’t feel human at all.
I was much more interested in kinich, who appeared for 10 minutes in the quest, than Mavuika to be honest. His backstory is so compelling and ajaw is so weird that i can't help but want more of him
I know😭😭 Like kinich and ajaw had SO MUCH POTENTIAL, yet one of the most interesting characters in Natlan get the LEAST amount of screen time… I love Natlan but it disappointed me so much😢
Mavuika's confidence should have been taken down a peg. We see that every pyro archon was assimilated by the abyss (or at least their doubts) and it wouldve been dope if she dies- leaving the traveler to shoulder the "hope" of natlan and the ode ressurects her with newfound strength.
At the start of Natlan I legit thought Mavuika's character arc would be that she tries to be perfect to prove she's just as, if not even MORE, worthy as the non-human Archons. And that she would be overconfident and mess up somehow and need help from others, teaching her a lesson about the power of friendship and that it's ok to have flaws (especially since the other Archons aren't perfect either). But no, she's literally just the best at everything, lol.
One of my friends theorized that there was a Natlan rewrite purge as Natlan might have had more controversial and stereotypical stuff tied to it because of Venti's voicelines relating the Archon and people from natlan being brought to Mondstadt as SLAVES! ☠️ That probably would have caused more issues, and because of that decided to scrap lore along with having Murata, who was probably meant to be the Pyro Archon, be replaced by Mavuika to go with their new human story line along with the other random ass stuff..... There was more to it as well such as Wuthering Waves coming out, which made Mihoyo change Natlan a bit to compete. Other reason for Rewrite theory: The lack of lore for Natlan being mentioned UNTIL SUMERU, even then we saw 0 NPCs from Natlan until Natlans release. By Inazuma, we had NOCs from all nations BUT Natlan.
@@knightx605yooo, tbh, murata’s a mistranslation and her name’s always been the same as mavuika - mostly cos the whole genshin manhua with vanessa came out in Mond times (or even earlier) and eng translation team (which is constantly failing my btw, you can look up actual chinese ppl explaining the whole “sworn brother” which eng team translated as “literal adopted into family brother”) had nothing to work with 👍🏻
@@knightx605but yeah i agree on all other points. wuwa definitely landed a hit on the executives 👍🏻 but goodamn!!! Vanessa was called one of Mavuika’s children. Her tribe literally managed to leave Natlan with no consequences to their mental health other than later being captured by nobility and brought in as slaves!!! Like where is it???
I've pulled all the archon characters before her and she was someone I was expecting to pull, but lost interest over the story. I actually don't mind the bike attack animations and I actually like that they make her an ally from the start, but compared to Nahida and Furina's complex questline Mauvika just felt flat unfortunately
I find it hard to believe that the people who wrote the deeply moving stories and characters of Sumeru and Fontaine could be the same people who wrote the mostly shallow Natlan stories and characters. As if Hoyo pulled the good writers from this project to work on other projects. (And the same re: character designers.) I'm not saying that's what actually happened, but that's what it feels like to me.
I really get annoyed when people say natlan felt like typical shounen because even shounen mangas have more depth. Even the one like black clover and demon slayer if you chose to get invested do not break your suspension of disbelief the way natlan does.
I have suspicion they nerf the story to make her perfect, because it start to get weird at 5.2, like they want a brief patch to flesh out characters (like archon quest but a calm before storm moment) but even that so short!! This make me angry because it ties to how they waste Capitano's potential 1) bro WITNESSING the fall of khaenriah, we can GET INFO about it more, we can have a hangout/prep time with him, asking about the event 500 years ago & mavuika can join in & relate to him, as both are warrior that fought the unknown danger (this will make incels angry tho) . 2) Capitano is the only one challenging mavuika's plan, they have this good banter of a leader & co leader do in a lot of story, they are foil for each other, literal fire & ice for crying out loud, every moment with him can be utilized for this . 3) Capitano stole the story's emotional core for me, as he also a human (albeit with modified body), he fought the abyss & he cares about his people so much he want their soul to rest in peace, HE CHALLENGED A SHADE FOR THAT. I FEEL MAVUIKA IS NOT CONFLICTED ENOUGH TO SEE AN OUTLANDER DO THAT FOR HER COUNTRY & HERSELF, Yelan in interlude archon quest emote & show her fear when Xiao teleport them & about to self sacrifice himself, showing that she does not want to lose a team member from self sacrificing again, it's tied to her background of her carrying survivor guilt. Capitano just kinda mentioned briefly when- GIRL, thanks to his condition & sacrifice you are still standing, really pure luck, doesn't that mean a moment of reflection for you? Honorable or great warrior is not enough, you keep your life because fortunately there's another one want to take your place
I just compared Mavuika's character trailer with Raiden Shogun's. I will tell you this, Raiden still gives me the chills that I had when it was first released. Raiden's presence is just Godly that you can't help but kneel over her absolute power. HoYo don't make character this badass anymore, man.
raiden and signora both invoked a primal rage inside of me every time they were on screen. i hated them so much and wanted to kill them, was so happy when signora died. cried for furina just like neuvi did during her AQ. felt 0 emotion through all of natlan unfortunately
That's because Raiden Shogun and Mavuika are complete opposites, Shogun is more of a tyrant and Mavuika is more of a bastion of hope, both bad asses on their respective roles.
Right!? Even I go back to Zhongli’s trailer as per ritual because he set the standards for the trailers. His mere appearance in a cutscene excites me so much because he holds that much aura. Same goes with other characters like Neuvi, Furina, etc etc. But for Natlan characters? Nah.
Hot take I really dont think Raidens trailer is good. I rank it Zhongli, Furina, Nahida, Mavuika, Raiden, Venti. Zhongli would be below Mavuika if it wasn't for the music in his trailer.
For a lot of people genshin is an adventerous, beautiful lore heavy game with an interesting story that is pretty inclusive towards all kinds of players due the variety of things that you can do which i believed also resulted in it having more popularity than any other game in its genre (i was always pushed off by other gachas for how non inclusive and low quality they felt - by non inclusive i meant oversaturated and disoriented UI, the hardcore gameplay / niche communities , gooner culture etc but these days it feels like genshin is becoming more and more like them, the entirety of natlan archon quest felt like a sales advertisement for the characters it had no substance whatsoever, things that were important were rushed to finish off quickly and the things that had no importance where sooo dragged it just made me feel there was actually no story to be told here, just cooking stew to advertise these characters and get the region over with. there was no important lore apart from the sky break thingy which was just a 1 second moment which wasnt mentioned ever again.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts about Citlali overall. Idk if the hate for her is justified because of “cheap fanservice” allegation. Tbh I like her character more than Mavuika and her story quest solidified my liking for her
I love this take, including wanting folks who vibe with her to enjoy, while also making it clear why for some of us she's a skip. Hopefully the massive power spike is an anomaly not the norm going forward.
Feels like they took the complaints people had with Ei to heart, but they went overboard, and circled all the way to the extreme end. Between the two, I'm not sure which is the bigger base breaking character.
i think they misunderstood the complaints about Ei. Ei being a flawed ruler and causing a crisis among her people is an interesting theme, it's just that it's poorly executed. They instead thought the premise was the problem and rewrote Mavuika to be the very opposite of Ei
She already took an L 500 years ago. She had to be carried away barely conscious by Tupac, the last member of the Six Heroes still standing and he also died soon after. The plan almost failed right there. Then it almost failed again at the 499th year had "Hine" not motivated her to keep going. The whole plan in the present day was precisely BECAUSE she couldn't win during the Cataclysm. If she was perfect, she would have singlehandedly beat the Abyss for good during the Cataclysm.
She failed when thousands of people died when the abyss attacked because her plan to assemble the hero's didn't progress as fast as she thought it would.
people in the replies here are not being very effective with their argumentation. The points regarding the war with the abyss are the high stakes of the plot which do not have as much correlation with the characters and the more personal stakes which is the point of the entire video. None of these events that are listed by the people here have actually affected Mavuika in-game in any significant way because the plot demanded she and the traveler just steamroll everything as it were in a conveyor belt with no tension, nothing at all. Mavuika's sister and the 6 heroes are used more as plot devices and never at any point do they impact mavuika's modus operandi in the entire archon quest as the video here literally points out. Basically it doesn't matter if x people died, the impact the abyss had in their impromptu attack to natlan. Nothing ever touches or has any consequence on mavuika who only gets more praises as it happens and long after. She has "flaws" but is still Treated like she's perfect no matter what, which is the crux here.
6:00 thanks for articulating this, it just goes unsaid and is so jarring. They're so quick and willing to deus ex machina explain away so many things, the fact that they never put attention into explaining the world even in a half-arsed way is a noticeable shift in the game's coherence
I agree with the writing, as someone who likes her gameplay and design. I had a little spark of inspiration when i finished her story quest, when she boasted her fight with Xbalanque, in a way to rewrite her. Her being egotistical about her feats could seem like a way of reassuring herself, that she was the correct one to send years in the future for the final battle, that leaving behind her family was worth it, that even becoming the archon in the first place, was worth it. Make her family a touchy subject. She doesn't break down, but she shuts the conversation if someone brings it up. I don't know if it sounds too similar to Furina, but then again, she was following a plan blindly, yet knowing everything depended on her, she never wanted to be an archon in the first place. While with this Mavuika, she's proudly the archon, but still has moments were she curses that all of this better be worth it.
Definitely one of the most anticipated characters in this saga, mostly due to her being an Archon, And I know some people don't like it but I personally like her design, she looks gorgeous, badass and hot, definitely a nice changeup for a character to show less skin but still tempting on the suit, I do love her motivation on wanting to end the abyss that's been affecting Natlan for so long, but throughout her speeches to everyone, she sounds like a politician, always yapping about how they're finally ending this cold war, and I do personally think it's used a bit too much, But I do personally like the theme of her gameplay, overall I think she's an okay Archon, I think Furina and Nahida are better in terms of story and lore perspective.
Character wise, i think her and zhongli are essentially the same character at two ends of their journey. Both are: 1) powerful 2)lost loved ones and citizens 3)beloved leaders However while zhongli is jaded, tired, and wishes to leave the limelight- Mavuika is young, spirited, and sociable (and loves the limelight) This lends to a deficit on mavuika. Zhongli and mavuika are both paragons. They both try to the right thing 100% of the time. However, zhongli is tastefully kept out of the narrative because hes too strong. His quest revolved around hiding in the background with the tease that he might come out and solve all the issues. Mavuika never intends to hide, and from a writing standpoint- it makes her actions predictable. I still enjoyed natlan 100% over liyue- but they shouldve gave mavuika time to build characteristics that arent just the paragon archetype.
Remember when Zhongli saved everyone with Xiao in the Chasm? They had the same thing with Kachina but the sauce wasn’t there in Natlan. Yeah, both nations actually are so similar! (I like Liyue more 😅).
@jet687 I think the liyue quest has multiple problems, but they did do well by giving zhongli a conflict that he can't solve with strength. (Which, while still boring to me- at least reveals a strategic side to him)
@@jet687Natlan is a mockery of Liyue for that reason. The fact that Lantern Rite is gonna be juxtaposed with Nathan makes it all feel so cheap. Especially when EN voice acting is mostly cut off.
Here's my take as the one person in the comments who liked Mavuika as a character. Mavuika's Unspoken Flaw: - Mavuika's flaw is that she was willing to sacrifice herself in order to save everyone, when the whole motto of their nation is "No one fights alone." In the speaker's chamber in Act 1 or 2 (i cant remember) the player is given time to interact with all the different artifacts that she'd collected over the years and learn more about her. The entire section is so somber because she's remembering those she's lost. As what is basically a "General" for the "army" that is the people of Natlan, Mavuika was not given the time or space to be vulnerable. Her story quest does a pretty good job of explaining why she presents the way she does. It's also a nice breath of fresh air for her characterization because she's finally able to relax without the looming threat of screwing up a 500 year plan. The lore of the Ancient names is only slightly explained when Mualani receives hers. The memories & experiences of everyone who received the ancient name before you is then given to the newest bearer. Mavuika, having the Ancient name that belonged to all of the previous Pyro archons, pretty clearly had a lot of pressure/anxiety built up over the years. When she placed her life within the sacred flame, it's implied that her spirit had to make the entire trip into the future manually. So she did experience the full 500 years on her motorcycle, just driving through time. As foir the current day Flamestrider, it's made of secret source components, so thats why it's so out of place. It's made with old dragon technology. There's a line in her Teapot dialouge that explains why there arent more around. While she leads a nation of people to unity, she's had to make a lot of the journey alone. And tends to rely on only herself when things are on the line. The only reason she beat Gosoythoth is because she fought WITH the traveler. She hit Gosoythoth with the super saiyan punch like 3x and it did nothing until she had someone else with her. Characterization: - The main difference I see in characterization of the archon in Natlan vs previous nations is that much of Mavuika's characterization is optional. In Sumeru, the player is forced into an entire Archon quest in to learn about samsaras/how Nahida operates. In Fontaine, the entire story revolved around Focalor's plan. In Inazuma, Raiden was the antagonist for most of it so the player is again, forced to learn about the Archon. Liyue, we're trying to figure out who killed Rex Lapis. Mondstadt, literally interacting with Venti multiple times to move the plot forwards, and being force-fed exposition about Venti/Teyvat. In Natlan, Mavuika is openly known & revered by her people. Contrary to the previous archons, she is an active leader in her nation and actually like.. works. A LOT. Venti hates even being around for anyone to know he's the archon. Zhongli faked his death. Raiden had PTSD and went into self imposed Solitary Confinement with an android running the state. Nahida was imprisioned, and Furina was known/loved by her people but most respected Neuvillette as the end all/be all of Fontaine. All that said, due to the looming threat of the abyss, and bc the Traveler drops in at the 11th hour, there is not much time to learn about Mavuika. You get some insight into her backstory when she talks about Atea, then moments of characterization during the war arc when they're on comms back and forth. Not much to work off of, if the player isn't really looking for it. [Anecdotally, imo, Mavuika is very reminiscent of many latina Matriarchs. A leader in their family, well revered and respected, but not often given the time or space to process things emotionally, due to the needs of the family. She gets things done and does all that is needed of her for others, while also neglecting herself in order to make sure that her family prospers. She is loved, and cared for by her nation (family) and gets praise/celebration, but also has her own issues that are not very surface level for everyone to see. My abuela was very similar before she passed a few years ago. To me, the subtext of her characterization came across very clearly. I don't speak for all Latina matriarchs, i'm just saying that's what i saw from my experience.] Archon Quests: - Also to be noted, the Natlan archon questline is the most "video-gamey" that we've had in a while. For Fontaine, theres like 4 combat sequences for the entirety of it. Meanwhile, Natlan has an entire arc where the player is fighting enemies, multiple times. There was a lot more interaction with game mechanics and less talking though plot points. Honestly, I really do understand why people don't like Mavuika. The story was too big around her to do justice & thoroughly develop her as a character. But I think that's more on the story beats being focused around the heroes of Natlan for 70%, Capitano for 15%, the war with the abyss for 10%, and leaving Mavuika with the final remaining 5%. Natlan's archon quest is about the liberation of a nation, more than any other Archon questline in the game so far. I don't think Mavuika is a bad character, I think the writing team took everyone's feedback about Sumeru's archon quest and they heavily retracted from the slower character driven story in favor of spectacle. I liked Natlan a lot because I felt like i was finally playing a game again, instead of reading through a visual novel.
how is self sacrifice to save everyone a flaw? huh? and either way that "flaw" carries no weight and amounts to nothing because she never sacrifices herself to save everyone. They just shoe-in capitano for that cuz the precious little incels could never lose their favourite perfect god waifu
@@homurastan2927 There's more to it than just self sacrifice, but i already wrote an essay before so i left out what i thought was obvious. The entire theme of Natlan is fighting together against a common goal. Mavuika deciding *alone* that her sacrifice was what would end everything, is flawed in that: it was a decision she let almost nobody else in on. She wasn't working together to find a solution, she was just repeating the same mistakes of the previous Pyro Archons. Even towards the end of Act V, Citlali is the one who finds the traveler to try and get Mavuika to stop her sacrifice. Capitano wasn't a shoe in at all, his story was foreshadowed immediately in the Archon quests from Act 1-2. If you didnt pick up on what was happening after his conversation with the Lord of the Night, idk what to tell you. His 3d model was not of a playable character as well, he had huge death flags all in his story, etc. It was kinda obvious. At the end of Act V, when they're speaking with Ronova, Capitano is the one who points out TO Mavuika that she's ultimately not saving anything, and that her solution to die alone would be a band-aid solution to the overall issue that Natlan had with it's leylines/the Abyss. Mavuika's flaw is that all she wanted to do was win the war, and that she wasn't thinking of her own future. Just the future of other people. She resigned herself to death for others, neglecting her own life. In her story quest, you see a bit just how much she's loosened up now that she doesn't have to think about a war anymore. I could care less about a waifu, im talking about storytelling/writing.
@@miiinkusI have to disagree, self sacrifice isn't a character flaw no matter how you look at it. It's the quintessential "too good for this sinful earth" Mary Sue trait. The whole point of her willingness to sacrifice herself was just to show the players what a noble selfless person she is. If it was an actual flaw there would be characters reacting negatively to it, but everyone only ever loves Mavuika in-universe.
@StummerVogel the entire last section of Act V in Ochkanatlan is Citlali+Traveler+Lord of the Night trying to get her not to do it because 1) it’s a bad idea that only gets Natlan another 200-300 years and 2) Capitano’s proposition to the Lord of the Night was a better plan because he worked WITH someone else (again “No One fights alone”) to find a solution. no part about that seems like she’s better than anyone. it was everyone learning her final plan all at once and telling her “your plan is dumb, stop now we have to figure out something else.”
YAPFEST AHEAD PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK IMO: Disagreements: Mavuika's biggest flaw is how flawless she wants herself to be. She knows that she is human so she is willing to sacrifice all the humane characteristics of herself to become the true pyro archon that natlan deserves. Remember how furina had to put on an act as an archon cuz she thought thats's how archons act. Mavuika being human also thinks greatly of archons, perhaps too greatly afterall she didnt see how ei messed up or how zhongli gave up on archonhood or even how nahida had inferiority complex. She only knew war since the beginning of her life and those brave and fearless heroes who sacrificed their life for natlan. As far as emotional aspects of her go, she clearly cares about everyone but is willing to put on the brave mask cuz she is the archon, like imagine your nation's leader is crying in the middle of a war. What are the common folk even supposed to do? This is made even more clear in her story quest when in the end she turns away and puts on her sunglasses before crying, showing the fact that she is human after all but she doesn't want anyone else to know about it. This is also confirmed when Citlali asks her what she truly wants just as a human and not an archon when she is about to sacrifice her life to lord of the night. She outright says it "It's not important Citlali" showing that she believes that her human self should not interfere with her archon duties, once again trying to be the god that even gods struggle to be.(19:37 yes, if only she knew that gods can be flawed perhaps she could let a few more things slide) 16:49 I dont think she would cry in front of her sister cuz she wouldn't want her sister to be emotional too after all she puts up the front that she always does the right thing. You could say Im looking too deep perhaps but that's exactly me, I have literally cried once in front of someone I just hold the tears back and once I get to my room and lock my door they come rolling down. 20:14 Xblanque looking out for the flame followed by his immediate retreat as soon as it goes out, I think is a pretty good indicator as to the fact that he was just keeping up and that he prolly wouldn't last much longer. Boasting is an interesting word to use here as the warriors all tend to have that playful competitive spirit as in they would probably rub it in if they have defeated you before, but that does not translate to her thinking any less of xblanque so im fine with it. Agreements: She should most definitely have had more arguments with capitano as to which plan should have been executed. Or atleast the argument they had should have been more layered and in depth rather than capitano being like "Hmph fine" after asking what the traveller thinks. Honestly tho why does he even care about what the traveller thinks. Her infalliable nature is another thing i missed in the archon quest. Act 5 was the best place to make her plan fail against goysoythoth. They could have actually killed the traveller and make her regret bringing the traveller in the first place. listening to the voice in the trailer "The value of a descender's life is much more than you imagine" made me think that they were doing that precisely but alas apparently the traveller didnt even die. The fight against gosoythoth felt like an easy victory (even though the previous bosses were all easy like whale and scaramek this one felt weird maybe cuz its the fking abyss we are talking about or maybe cuz arlecchino just kicked our asses 6 patches ago idk yet), it isnt rocket science that fights are compelling when the tides actually change from one side to another which never happens in this battle, making it feel underwhelming and also making mavuika feel unbeatable. Complete sidenote: Capitano actually deserved more screentime and more development to his story and his arc. They really rushed it, if you sit down and think about what he has done, he might just be the most tragic genshin char. Also maybe I like mavuika cuz she is the first competent archon who is also willing to be an archon 😆 and is prolly gonna remain that way cuz I expect tsaritsa to be a char based on cold love, like shes the parent when her 2 yr old kid falls instead on helping them up shes gonna tell them that she wont be there alongside her for the rest of her life so she better get used to getting up on her won cuz no one in this cruel world would help her.
As someone who really enjoyed natlan archon quest up to act 4 and mavuika's personality the act 5 going basically flawlessly with no push back from the abyss and no suspense was an immense disappointment and really brought down the entire experience, and it really exacerbated all of the points you make Overall despite me liking her and probably being one of my favorite characters I agree entirely with most of the video, and it makes me mad it could've been so much better
Ranking my favourite Archons: 1. Furina (Best written character in the game. She may not be an archon anymore but she’s definitely no. 1) 2. Zhongli (I understand him a lot. Zhongli may not be a good leader, but I feel the tiredness when you live so long, you miss people. His second story quest is one of my favourites in game. BTW love the Osmanthus wine.) 3. Venti (I respect him. Despite being a drunk bard he loves his people and will protect them at all costs. Hope he get the respect he deserves.) 4. Nahida (I like her and respect her. She’s cute and a very kind person. It’s just that I have more understanding on Zhongli and Venti much more than Nahida. Believe me I am happy that she gets a birthday event.) 5. Mavuika (She’s alright. More like a superhero than an Archon.) 6. Raiden (Ironically she’s the only Archon I have. I pulled her without understanding the character and I really regret it. Surely she’s very good in terms of design and gameplay. But Raiden’s story seems very weak. She’s an awful leader but faces no consequences. The she became good all of a sudden.)
Agreed. I think the writers should have delved deeper into her insecurities of her plans. She literally led her friends to their deaths and somehow their sacrifices were gonna save the nation. Instead she had no remorse whatsoever. Her story also built up to her death but they chickened out and chose to kill Capitano.
I pulled for her and even like to use her, but the bike was really out of touch, it's a massive flaw on her playstyle, and I fear for the future of the characters designs; there's no fantasy barrier to stop the Cryo Archon to drive a plane. It would so much better --- and more lore accurate --- if she got into her super sayan state and had pyro infused in her weapon, doing AoE dmg just like witht he bike in a charged attack
Rover is a glaring flaw in Wuwa’s story, but because they’re a silent protag, they’re mainly inoffensive at best since the rest of the current Wuwa story as of now is fine
Thank you for this!! I was really hoping for more from this character, she was such a sad let down for me too. Flawed characters will always be the best and most relatable types, because nobody is flawless.
As much as I love her and her gameplay, the natlan archon quest and her story just feels so… underwhelming. I loved fontaine and felt attached to so many of it’s characters because of the storyline and this just wasnt the same. As I said, I loved mavuika, visually and gameplay wise but she just feels so underdeveloped. So many characters in genshin have just extremely devastating lore and is rarely explored, unless they are an archon (like furina and nahida). They had the chance to have her story quest to be about this, or maybe even any mention in the archon quest. Thank you for reading my rant
I like her but her story quest she announced proudly she won against spoiler- Xbalanque. I didnt find that fair. 1. The flame went out ans xblangue backflipped back. It was a tie neither fell. Yet she proudly accepted him saying she won. Shes a great fighter ahe dosent need to win everything. Also her suddenly taking up painting and becoming so good after a few weeks to paint that family photo. As if You cant have any criticism now days though because its all hateful apprently even jf you like the character
@vigor9675 I think the graffiti is a bit diffrent to the painting. Like I'm not great at traditional art (anymore due to illnesses ) but am good at digital art after alot of practice. Just because your good at one artistc thing dosent mean you can be that good enough to do a painting like that when she only is a beginner
I love Kazuha, but an archon quest about him in his current form would absolutely be boring. There's a BIG difference between having a character without flaws as a side character - or even better, as an arbiter over the rest of the characters - than as the main protagonist of the story.
i dont think this game is for mature audiences anymore, i think it has doubled down on trying to milk money from less mature audiences and (i dont wanna say it) gooners. its sad to see the story have so much potential though.
@@mk_gamíng0609 well yes but for a lot of people genshin is an adventerous, beautiful lore heavy game that is pretty inclusive towards all kinds of players due the variety of things that you can do which i believed also resulted in it having more popularity than any other game in its genre (i was always pushed off by other gachas for how non inclusive and low quality they felt - by non inclusive i meant oversaturated and disoriented UI, the hardcore gameplay / niche communities etc) but these days it feels like genshin is becoming more and more like them, the entirety of natlan archon quest felt like a sales advertisement for the characters it had no substance whatsoever, things that were important were rushed to finish off quickly and the things that had no importance where sooo dragged it just made me feel there was actually no story to be told here, just cooking stew to advertise these characters and get the region over with. there was no important lore apart from the sky break thingy which was just a 1 second moment which wasnt mentioned ever again.
It never was. You just didn't likes Natlan story it's not the end of the world, probably you will like Nord Krai story who knows, also how is genshin a gooner game? Literally everything is so family friendly. How old are you?
I'm so happy someone is finally making a video about this because i have made some of the EXACT same point while debating with some people about why Mauvika is such a flat character. The fact that she's mortal would have been a very good base to make her an more intresting character since she doesn't have the same advantages as the other archons yet they didn't utilize any of this and made her an unrealisticly perfect character. Even the other archons have flaws yet she doesn't Ironically she's the only human archon yet all the other archons feel much more human than her💀
no one, literally no one, wherever i see discussion about mavuika, there isn't a single mention of the things she sacrificed. she has no familly, she has no posetions (she burned them all to save everyone from the night kingdom), and she was ready to give her life, all for the nation. what capitano gave to her is the chance to finally have a life. he denied her persuit for absolute self sacrifice, and now mavuika has to rebuild her life. you can see in her story quest how she's slowly opening up more, it's very noticeable how she feels without the massive burden she had. and about the 500 year time skip, she fused with the eternal flame so she could be on a limbo state for all that time. about her flawless plan, it wasn't her only plan, the gnosis was the final chance, but she knew the consequences of using the gnosis. and besides, her plan wasn't flawless at all. if it weren't for capitano, the abyss would still have a chance to win. mavuika sacrificied everything for a gamble, and if it weren't for external agents (traveler and capitano) it's quite certain natlan's future would still be gloom. also the bike uses technology from the dragons, it's on her interactions.
The vid mentioned her sister! And pointed to the reason people tend not to mention any of that: Mavuika shows zero emotion about it. A few people have said that they interpreted that as her bottling up her emotions and being stoic, and if that's how you read her then it'd totally work. For me she just came across as unbothered, so it just didn't feel like she had actually sacrificed anything...
@@raptoriin her story quest it shows that she really bottles up her emotions so players are not wrong bout her being stoic ! And in my pov she was just plainly happy seeing her sis again , since she knows it’s just the memories of her sister not her actual sister .
@@raptori From her Character Story 5 "Mavuika always imagined her plan to fight against the Abyss as a lengthy journey, and herself as an adventurer carrying a full pack and marching toward her predetermined goal. Memory and love were the supplies she brought, and they would help see her through confusion and solitude. . . having traveled so far, it was only natural to not wish to show the fatigue or weakness in one's heart, and even she was no exception. She could easily tell stories about her comrades or family with a smile, but rarely could she speak of the sadness sown in the river of time by those happy moments, nor could she take out her long-emptied haversack, point at it, and speak of how it reflected the current state of her heart. She could not, she would not, and she did not need to." So yes, she is hiding how she actually feels. You can even see it a bit when Xabblanque is talking to her about her family, she puts on her glasses to hide her eyes. Or when everyone is sharing the fact that they dreamt about their deceased loved ones, she intentionally hides that she also saw Hine.
And the reason no one speaks about these sacrifices she made is because she you never see how much they affect her, like she sacrifices everything and is still willing to put it all on the line every time? Well that's exactly what they mean by Mary Sue, flawless and not very human for a human arcon.
Honestly they could've done so much more with Natlan: 1) The night kingdom could've been incorporated more deeply, where residents of Natlan could've used it for traversal and protecting people from dying. This would've made Natlan feel like SAO, making their computer game-like animations make a lot of sense. 2) Night kingdom could've affected saurians too. They also could've made it so Surians were wild animals, and to form a bond with them Natlanian would've had to go on a pilgrimage. Right now they feel like live stock or domestic animals at best. They could've done something similar to the film Avatar. 3) They could've added more elements of sacrifice. Kachna for example could've lost her memory, it's not death, but all her innerpesonal relationships would've been gone including her firendship with Mualani. This would've been an emotional moment and could've let explore Mualani character better. 4) The whole bulshit with Traveler ancient name could've been simplified. They even threw away a line about ancient name requiring artisans life to craft, which they then forgot about completely. This hook they tried to put up was cheap as hell. 5) They could've justified Mavuika perfectness better by showing that 500 years in limbo dulled all but her goal to save natlan and memories of her sister. They could've given Capitano and Mavuika inter-personal relationships which could've been further explored when Capitano was making his sacrifice. This would've let us explore both Mavuika and Capitano human sides. Maybe Capitano could've been something of an older friend, lover or a father figure. This could've resulted into a dilemma of her not wanting him to sacrifice himself, leaving her broken down as her goal of sacrificing herself for Natlan would've been denied. 6) They should've made nature of natlan more uniform instead of making each area tribe lived in completely disconnected from each other, or they should've made region much bigger for each geographic region to feel like one, instead of like a Trounce domain. Should've also incorporated more elements of night Kingdom into Natlan, this would've made sense as night kingdom is less stable then ley lines and it would've made sense for it to leak into Natlan lore-wise. There were a lot of possibilities for Natlan, but they ended up doing so little.
I think what they were going for with Mavuika is that she steeled her resolve during the 500 year journey and carried that through to the present. Once she had that conversation in the sacred flame she fully committed to her plan and played her role as the confident leader till the end. In her story quest you can see a more human side of her finally showing through her playful dialogue showing that the whole time she was saying to herself "there's no time for doubts or flaws during war" and that she kept all that bottled up inside her and only showed her confident self because that to her was the only way to achieve victory and honor her friend's memory. While I understand this though I definitely feel like showing this to the audience during the quest would have been better then showing this confident leader archon to both the characters and the players. Basically she already went through her character arc before we met her
@@LoneFenrir yeah personally that’s what I like about her. In my opinion I was tired of the whole ordeal of going to each nation and having to deal with an archon who we cannot fully engage with, so I kinda appreciated how they set us in the climax of the story with an established archon. I will say though I think what was missing personally wasn’t things from Mauvika but things from the story that were missing due to mauvika being a more tame character than furina lore wise. In Fontaine we spent so much time learning the truth about furina, so I think that’s kinda what was missing. And not necessarily a archon plot twist but a third party to consistently challenge what we think of mauvika. I feel like we got a tiny bit of that through capitano but like I said a tiny bit lol so they should’ve decided to spend more time dropping lore bombs if anything lol
There's multiple videos explaining and showing team comps with or without Natlan characters, or even f2p friendly with Kachina instead of Xilonen and you're only missing out on about 6% damage compared to having Xilonen in the team. Yes Natlan characters are better with her but the same could be said for any other characters that want certain people in the party too.
Before I spoil myself with the video because I haven't done the final arc of the quest, yet, I will say that I have to agree. Mavuika feels like a Mary-Sue, and I'm actively looking to interpret character traits as flaws to make her more bearable. I liked her whole aesthetic, and I didn't get baited by the massive marketing ploy because of course I don't have energies to waste on watching much promotional stuff in youtube. At first, she felt like your good old monarch, that has to maintain an upstanding reputation because of her position. I loved that she had emotional weights from her past, and I was hoping that they explored that further, but it doesn't seem like they will. The more I discover of her character, the more perfect she becomes, and it honestly sucks. So I guess I have to interpret some snippets of her story as Mavuika being quirky and a bit overconfident. Because at the current level I've built her, she's getting her ass kicked more often than not, lol.
I find that those who write the lore and those who write the actual story quest are vastly different. Reading lore about characters is like reading a Greek epic while story quest is like a 6 graders blog post.
Exactly, I'm there with you lol.
They actually have different writters for different fields. For example despite world quest still tied to main quest/lore, they have different writer for main quest and world quest. So, it's possible they have different writer for lore too
Really that bad huh?
Yeah, the lore team is just made of much better writers. The lead story writer just isnt as good as people under him, and the game suffers a looot from it.
That's a great comparison lol
Thats because Raiden was so flawed (as a person) that created a lot of controversy
So this time they did the complete opposite, and created a Archon that has no flaws whatsover
But the problem with Raiden wasn't that she was a shitty leader, but rather the problem was that her actions had no consequences and no one held her responsible
I fell the same way about Mavuika. The plan she made 500 years ago was a bit irrelevant because the Traveler and Capitano finished the job. All Natlan characters were in the supporting role in the story and without the Traveler, they might not make it. But yeah I see the connection.
People dislike Inazuma for *how* it was told, they don't challenge the fundamental premise. They engage with the story and themes and come to the conclusion that it could have been told a lot better, as a result of their fundamental enthusiastic investment in what's going on
Natlan just feels like people didn't enjoy what they got, aren't invested in it and there's not some big outcry for how to fix it because it's a lot more fundamentally uninteresting, rather than being interesting but beefing it in execution.
Nahida and furina came right after raiden and both are pretty flawe indivuals of course not as flawed as raiden but still with flaws
they're similar in regards to Raiden never faced consequences as Mavuika never had challenges
I don't get people who say that Raiden never got any consequences. Raiden literally faced the consequences of her past ideals when the Shogun defied her and forced her to fight 500 years.
People expect her to get crucified by her people when that was never a realistic expectation to begin with following Inazuma's worldbuilding.
Marvuika just feels so...bland. Like literal cardboard. I don't hate her, but I don't like her either. Because there's nothing TO like or hate about her. That's how boring they somehow managed to make her. How the actual hell did we go from Venti, Ei, Nahida, Zhongli, and Furina to her.
@@LeaveMeAloneFBI Natlan was so rough
There are actually something to hate about her , she took so much screentime while having zero personality , players complain about paimon who infinitely more interesting than that cardboard
It makes one wonder, did they deliberately tame her down to emphasize she is human, or is it just bad writing?
modern western writing is leaching into china.
I understand why people find her boring, but I guess that's what makes a good archon. Loved by everyone, calm, intelligent, powerful, inhumanely flawless.
In my opinion, she's the first archon we've seen that actually FEELS like an archon, and ticks all the boxes. Feels like a breath of fresh air to me, compared to what we've experienced with the other archons
Having to leave Furina to meet Mavuika feels like reading a masterpiece of literature through centuries, and then having to read an 11 year old’s first Wattpad fanfic
pretty much, Furina's quest was the best archon quest so far for sure. Natland archon quest is like a mess.
Man, Fontaine raised my expectations too high..
they wanted to portray her as the bakugo of the archons
the symbol of victory
they failed to show significant struggles that would've endeared her to the audience
I wish we knew WHY Mavuika was so strong for a human. What did this human do to become (theoretically) stronger than someone older and more experienced like the Traveler? It feels like she has plot armor
Inherited Ancient Name, basically the passing of power through all the past archons until now is what makes her so strong. She has their teachings and words of wisdom on hand
Hello there speed reader.
the moment someone becomes a Pyro Archon, they gain knowledge of the entire land aka they have access to all the information about the nation.
also their inner flame(which is potential) gets awakened. Mavuika states that not everyone's potential is that high but hers turned out to be so, matching even the great Pyro Archon Xbalanque
@@motemo8413 Did her potential become high after inheriting the ancient name and becoming pyro archon or was it just like that?
uhh I don't know maybe because of the Divine Throne and the fact that she is the current holder of the Pyro Gnosis, a device with seized authority from the Pyro Dragon Sovereign, one of the original wielders for the element of Pyro across the whole of Teyvat period? You really think Celestia would have a weak representative human or otherwise? And what does this have to do with the Traveller? we've long since discovered that not only does he/she have fragmented memories but an incomplete skill set as well and has failed to overcome just about anything on his/her own without the help of someone or something and succeeded every time, that is plot armor. They already discussed warriors in Natlan with either little to no skill or a natural strength physically and spiritually as discovered in the latest story quest. It's no different than someone being talented versus someone who isn't. She was probably already a vision wielder and we know how powerful ancient names are.
Another option when she met her sister could have been for her sister to comment on how little it seems like Mavuika shows emotion. If her consciousness went through 500 years it must have been affected, just like you pointed out. It could have been a moment to say something like “you were born a human, are you still a human now? Living that long is not a human experience, being human means to face death” etc etc. It could have brought in more conflict, made her situation more tragic, and highlighted some interesting themes
Oooh that's such a fantastic idea!
A simple change I would have made to her scenes in the Archon quest: Her sister (while Mauvika was in the sacred flame) would go every night to pray to the flame and try to update Mauvika on her life. Trying to talk to the sacred flame to somehow reach her sister. So, when Mauvika meets her sister in the Night Kingdom, she suddenly gets a flash of memories long forgotten, specifically, of all the thousands of prayers her sister had made to her. This makes her break down, and we see a critical moment of weakness, of her having an urge to stay with her sister’s spirit in the night kingdom rather than face the dragon she knows has a high chance of killing her.
Idk, just an idea. I’m fairly neutral on the Nathan quest, there’s a lot of things that were neat and some gorgeous cutscenes, but it really missed a lot of the character focus and mystery of Fontaine (my favorite region aesthetically, story, and character-wise)
Hine is just an empty plot device as i said to someone on reddit
We do see a bit of expression change when she does meet Hine. There is sadness there.
My personal reasoning for this is just that she's really gotten good at bottling up her feelings over the years, maybe to the point of almost feeling numb? War might've done that to her. It would've been interesting to see more of her actual humanity show which I hope we can get in future Mavuika content because we do see her wish for people to just see her as a regular person and she does still have a love for the extreme sports still since she is a Scion of the Canopy. Perhaps her wishing to have a closer relationship with more of her people rather than being outright idolized could be a good story point.
Also Natlan altogether felt more about the land itself and the people as a whole rather than individual characters. We saw the real time effects of this 500 year war on the nation. Thousands actually died. It's not a bad way to tell a story but yeah. Character focus kind of took a hit because of it.
I say this with Mavuika being one of my favourite characters and really liking the Natlan Archon Quest btw, though I didn't do Mavuika's quest yet.
yesss if only she cried more, she needs to be super vulnerable and cry because thats what girls and women do. the fact that most of comments like these are coming from women is absolutely hilarious
@ …huh? Is crying upon seeing the ghost of your long-dead sister who you missed the entire life of not a scene worthy of tears? If not that, then what would be? Crying is a natural human act that both woman and men do. It’s inherently humanizing to see a character cry.
What’s your point here? That I’m being misogynist by wanting a woman to cry? Or that crying is inherently female and somehow I’m upholding a stereotype by wanting to see Mauvika cry? What a strange comment.
it's weird how abyss is shown to mimic living stuffs since 5.0 and can learn knowledge of natlan leyline, they even created overworld boss that mimic other bosses, which is a perfect build up for a final boss that mimic the closest ones.
It doesn’t help that the Abyss didn’t feel threatening at all! We’ve been folding Hilichurls, Abyss Mages, and Rifthounds for years now. The only new abyss enemy mimics other enemies. They gave us of a taste of how dangerous the abyss can be with the Narwhal in Fontaine, but didn’t expand on it at all. All I kept saying to myself in the AQ was “Y’all are losing to this”?
Liyue characters: Put aside their differences with the Adepti, fight hand-in-hand, and sacrifice their homes to protect Liyue after their beloved god was assassinated
Inazuma characters: Form a resistance army, create an underground network to help people escape a fascist nation, stage a coup against a tyrannical government
Sumeru characters: Devise a plot and break the law to celebrate and free their imprisoned god despite constant surveillance and mind control
Fontaine characters: Take action according to their own strengths to save the people of Fontaine from a cataclysmic event, put their god on trial for not putting in the same effort
Natlan characters: Say some really nice and encouraging words from the sidelines
Yea same thoughts. Feel like the abyss monsters should have been more terrifying or different lol
@@justinbailey1669 Traveler did nothing in Fontaine. legit u can remove them from the plot and nothing changes.
meanwhile in Natlan they cured so many people from abyssal corruption and even helped to take down Eroded lord of the primal fire
it feels like Traveler did the most in Natlan out of all the nations
@@motemo8413 traveler isn't meant to take part in the main events anyway. their main reason for exploring teyvat is to find their sibling and be a witness because their memories cannot be tampered with from things like irminsul
@@vilfs their goal hasn't been to find the sibling since we will be reunited quest. they are exploring Teyvat to see the truth of this world that made Abyss twin take the path that they did
Feels like the B team wrote Natlan/Mavuika. This can't be the work of people who made Sumeru/Fontaine. And as much as people hate aranara quest, atleast the Archon quest of Sumeru was S tier. As much as you hate the desert, the secrets/lore of the pyramids were worth it. The world building was crazy. How did we go from Fontaine/Sumeru to Natlan? Such a downgrade.
While doing Nahida's birthday quest, when they were getting a family photo at the end, all I could think was how attached I felt to the Sumeru characters. I ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT THEM. EACH ONE OF THEM.
Then I reflected at Fontaine cast... Furina, Neuvilette, Lyney, Arlecchino, Navia, Wriosthley, Clorinde, Sigewinne, Lynette, Ferminet, Chiori.... I really felt connected to every single character. I liked their story, liked their quirks, liked their designs, their playstyle. I wanted MORE FROM THEM. Like what they're doing now how are they? That's how well written they were, we forget for a second that they are fictional characters.
But then I look at Natlan characters. I FEEL NOTHING. They are so surface level and shallow. Ideally I should have recency bias since this is the latest update and I should be in the honeymoon/hype phase. I spent my hard earned primos to pull them. Yet I feel no connection to them except Kachina and Ororon. If some of them were unalived in the war I wouldn't have cared. That's how bad Natlan characters' writing was. The blind Hoyo shills downplay this fact a lot and this is very bad cuz the writing will get worse if you don't criticise them now.
I'm so glad you mentioned the Sumeru characters because a lot of these waifu obsessed shills try to downplay the mid reception of Natlan and make it seem like only the "husbando pullers" are hating it due to the lack of male characters. A lot of "husbando pullers" I know from various online spaces love Sumeru's characters male AND female because they're written well. They have and develop character relationships that we actually see onscreen that's why they are received well. Sumeru characters has a whole ass literal "found family" theme going for it.
Snezhnaya is the nation I was most hyped for and now I worry it will be the same shallow storytelling as it was Natlan
Exactly, I was so hyped for Natlan since my favorite element was pyro ...
Aranara quest wasn't bad tbh, it was just unnecessarily long since it combined so many little quests. I personally enjoyed it
Saying hoyo shills made me disregard everything you just said, also fuck Sumeru's story and it's characters, Dehya and Wanderer were the only good characters it had.
Honestly I didn't understand why HYV made Mavuika a human, because nothing in her personality is human. Unlike Furina, where we saw the burden that the role of a deity can have on the human psyche, Mavuika, on the other hand, doesn't have this problem at all.
There was the animation dedicated to her, but even that clearly didn't do justice to her human side, because she recovers from her pain very quickly. And that's my first problem with Mavuika: she has no adversity. She was destined to win from the start, everyone accepted her plan without flinching, even though it was said several times that it was risky, and the rare times when people tried to put spokes in her wheels it ended very quickly. Mavuika has no weaknesses, her moments of pain or difficulty are super fast, everyone says how cool and badass she is...in fact she's a Mary-Sue.
EDIT: For those who tell me that Furina and Mavuika didn't share the same burden, it's false. Remember that if Mavuika's plan turned out to be a failure, then the entire people of Natlan would have been decimated. Mavuika could have lost her nation and her friends by betting everything on a plan that turned out to be random from A to Z, because if Chuychu hadn't died, Chasca would never have awakened so Mavuika's plan wouldn't have worked. And that's the problem: for such a risky plan, Mavuika suffered very little from the possible disastrous consequences that it could have caused, she was never afraid to tell herself that her friends and her nation that she is supposed to protect and lead could have died because of her, she was always very confident despite the number of deaths in act 2.
@Sasha-cb8mt The animated short was so bad. It was so vague that you cannot even tell if Mauvika is struggling for 500 years or if she is just bored out of her mind. Her face doesn't express sadness or regret or tears, just a blank stare that can mean anything. Hoyo really does do a lot of things so vaguely that one persons interpretation is just as valid as the others.
I can't feel bad for her if she doesn't show clear signs of sorrow. Blank stare doesn't equal sorrow any more than it does boredom.
Way to out yourself as someone who didn't read the fucking story with your eyes open. Mavuika doesn't have this problem because she hasn't been alive for 500 years. She was alive 500 years ago but then gave herself up to the Sacred Flame in order to be reborn into the future. She hasn't been alive for 500 years, it's still her regular age. If you'd like to know what 500 years is like for a normal human to endure, you have her little trailer where she takes her bike through 500 years of history and it's uncertain to Mavuika when she'll stop and be reborn. We see her falter and struggle to find the courage to keep this going, unsure of how long it'll take. She's not a Mary Sue, you're just a retard.
Not trying to defend Mavuika or anything but an important part of Furina’s burden was not just that of being a human deity, it was the immense stress of having to convince the whole of Fontaine that she wasn’t human. She had no way to prove she wasn’t human, no powers, no hydro authority, so the only thing she could do was play a character. Not only that, but she could not confide in anyone because if anyone knew the real Furina the whole of Fontaine would be in danger. Even though she was surrounded by people, constantly praised, always in the spotlight, it was all meaningless because none of it was directed towards her but instead the person she was pretending to be. She was truly alone. 500 years of solitude would take a toll on anybody, but Mavuika never had that burden. People knew her as the pyro archon but there were also people who knew her as Mavuika.
@@zukodude487987her voice doesn’t either.. I think the studio failed the interpretation of Mavuikas character and voice atp (no hate to the Va cause she can definitely do a great job and put a lot of emotion into her!!) but sadly there was no emotion in her voice 70% of the time
@ I think it is an issue with the game in general where almost every character story is its own contained story with no actual substance or no clear direction and very generic. They are like filler, nothing meaningful and very generic and doesnt contribute to their development.
A lot of character lines are also very generic like how Yanfei says the laws can be *good or bad*, like yes the laws can be good or bad, that is obvious. I can say the weather can be either cloudy or clear and both are good and bad in their own right, because it is self evident an thus meaningless to say unless you are talking to a toddler. It is just meaningless word chatter for the sake of having the characters talk.
The characters need more direction and contribute more to the overall world or story. Mauvikas animation was a clear example of filler and keeping the story vague. I think they are doing that cuz they dont want the players to feel like the story is gatekept behind a youtube video, but it has the side effect of making the videos worthless to watch much like Naruto filler is worthless to watch.
She's basically the MCU Captain Marvel of Genshin:
1. Powerful
2. Barely has any human flaws
3. Shallow character development
4. Aided by the "Power of Friendship"
Decent but nowhere near as interesting as Nahida or Furina.
She's basically a cookie cut girlboss mary sue but since she's a pretty anime girl, people are fine with it
She feels like 12 year olds first ocs; will never make mistakes, tragic backstory is only for a decor, not internally woven, loved by everyone and their action isnt challenged to the point of changing/progressing said character
Tldr; very shallow
@@raviolibirb8009 nah, mary sues channels narcissim and have to be the focus of the limelight at the expense of all the other characters. If she was a Mary Sue Traveller would not have been such a hero in Natlan. She's just op and boring.
She is not perfect, but she has no flaws and no quirks. I can see somewhat that being flawless was the intention but there's a lack of dynamism in the writing that kinda makes it all fall apart anyway. I understand that it's part of the meme too but the fact that they try and force it down your throat a bit, during her quest is a bit weird kinda, it exposes a flaw with Natlan somewhat and it's kinda how, it feels a bit confused/wonky, in terms of vision and direction. I think it's just how they wanted to go about making the direction they chose as digestible as possible.
@@raviolibirb8009 Yes I am fine it with because she's hot😅. But criticism are valid.
Ironically enough, there's a character in HSR who seems to be a perfected version of Mavuika: Feixiao. And this fox general has more flaws than perfect human Mavuika. I've thought of this and discussed this with some people but two details stood out to me. 1) Letting the lady has small flaws 2) Have the lady delegate and depend on her friends, peers, subordinates.
Feixiao is introduced as an undefeated general, but we are shown little things that ground her. She's rowdy and hot-blooded so she leaves diplomacy and espionage to her more discreet and level headed friends Jiaoqiu and Moze. While she's peerless in combat, she consults strategy with her peers Jing Yuan and Huaiyan who are both better suited for tactics and logistics. At the climax of Wardance, she entrusted an important task of holding her back as she's in berserk mode to Yanqing, Yunli, and March who are younger and not as powerful/experienced. Feixiao brags about how she lacks worries but Jiaoqiu's injuries clearly affected her and weights on her despite having her ailment cured thanks to his sacrifices. Then we have her funny quirk of being a lightweight and violent drunk.
Mavuika tho? It's all her one-woman show. It's all her plans that she works on herself but there was little to no hiccups or oppositions towards her. Nobody gets to question her because the writers don't let it happen and if someone tries then Mavuika proves her point. Yay! She doesn't let Kinich have his moment, just take his sword to have her limelight. What a great leader. Her stated flaw of being bad at painting? Oh look, she's perfectly good at it. Like damn, we might as well just send her to defeat Celestia since her plot armor frees her from even a funny quirk.
Oh you explain perfectly
Feixiao is definitely not the perfectly-written character, but yeah better than Mavuika
I agree with you on Mavuika (I can't say anything about Feixiao because I don't play HSR) except on her blocking Kinich. Capitano is the first of the harbingers, with the harbingers down to rank three being on the level of gods. Kinich is strong, but letting him fight the Captain would be so dumb for her to do, just letting him walk into his death. Capitano vs. Kinich probably would have looked like Raiden vs. Signora, and Mavuika needs him alive since he's one of the six heroes.
@@HighLevelPlayer funny you mentioned that, because just so happens in the quest that HSR lets the aforementioned young ones Yanqing, Yunli, and March to have their own time to shine and actually do significant damage to Hoolay, an ancient nemesis and former enslaver of Feixiao, even if they struggled against him. Feixiao only appeared last minute after the trio had their spotlight especially as culmination of Yanqing's character journey and later had her "battle of the mind" as her own moment so nobody outshine the other.
In other words, the game coulda let Kinich and even the other heroes have some scenes fighting Capitano. Doing their best but ultimately outdone by the First Harbinger, but at nick of time saved by Mavu. They just. Kinda refused to let Kinich have any significance ig.
It's crazy how Mavuika is supposed to be the only human amongst the Archons yet other Archons feel so humanlike and have emotions but Mavuika seems the farthest away from human emotions despite being a human. She is perfect in everything. No vulnerability, no weakness, nothing. Bravo writers 😂
Almost like that’s the point…
@@Angel-Kittyyelaborate?
@@angellexgamer5416 Mavuika is the only human archon (except from Furina, however she was always perceived as a god by her people anyway).
The way I interpreted Mavuika is that she was so strong and actually godlike in order to contrast the archons before her. Venti is a drunk, zhongli retired, ei was a tyrant, and nahida was imprisoned. Mavuika contrasts the other archons by actively playing a role in her nation and leading her people. She acts like a god who supports her people and leads them despite being human. To me, that adds to the overall point of Genshin and hoyoverse games in general where the “power of humanity” is so important. It would make 0 sense to make her seem weak or vulnerable.
I like to add onto Angel kitty's comment. We already saw her insecurities, fear and lonesomeness in her animated short. Seeing your friends die, knowing you're outliving everyone and your family. 500 years of waiting and being in her own subconscious was enough time to wallow again and again and then find her resolve again to fight for her Nation. Why I like Mavuika is because we finally had a competent archon who could lead and fight alongside her people. No internal conflict manifesting itself in her existence, no mentally cooked person, there was no saving her because she didn't need to be saved. If it felt like we had no time to connect with her it was because it was purposefully written that way. She had no time for herself up until the end finishing her painting. It's the first nation that felt like a nation and challenged the gods.
@@Angel-Kittyy it's fine if it's with the people, the same way furina did. but we barely get to be with mavuika this AQ that even if it's only the traveler and mavuika. she still has no flaws. there's no human who doesn't have vulnerability on them. A perfect cardboard character is still bad character writing/
17:30 honestly having a shapeshifter villain that DOESN'T try transforming into the heroes friends is kinda crazy to me. It's like the most basic shapeshifter trope and they didn't even include that
for a human archon she's the least human of them all :/
@@x1225mariko least human award still goes to Ei but its close
@@icebear4325 nah, ei still has multiple, somewhat more distinct traits (or flaws). sucks at cooking, struggles to give up power, clueless about modern day stuff, etc.
mauvika picked up painting and supposedly mastered it in ~1wk.
Her most human Moment, to me, Is when She almost cries After Xbalanque compliments her
There have been theories circulating where a lot of people genuinely believe the archon quest was rewritten and with the way it went I’m starting to believe it as well
this happened also with inazuma, any chapter at this point could be believed to be rewritten. just accept it was meant to be like this from the start.
Its pretty likely, with Da Wei taking over the direction of the game and everything
In the trailer Mavuika changes into a bird or phoenix, but we got a motorbike, they definitely changed the story!
They removed the Prologue chapter of the official Genshin comics in the Chinese website early last year (assuming when they started developing Natlan) so it checks out. That's the chapter with Venti and Venessa with some bits of Natlan lore.
@@eszterfodor1136 Okay transforming into a Phoenix sounds waaaay cooler than a bike (which is still cool).
oh boy. a 21 minute long hate watch that confirms my negative bias? DONT MIND IF I DO
Is it just a bias tho? Or perhaps you can just simply recognize some writing mistakes that have been made.
LMAO fr its so hard to find videos like this
LMAO SO REAL 😭🙏
Unrelated but I accidentally read minutes as hours somehow, and I bet for sure 21 hours of Natlan hate would do numbers on the three of you
@@itsmeliska1186it’s def bias if you all see negative on a character lol
i feel like part of mavuika's traits that they could further develop is her savior complex and how she always goes the extra mile to assist everyone with their problems and issues, and rushes towards danger without hesitation or consideration. something that might come off as reckless and unnecessary, maybe even unwise cos she always resorts to punching her way through things without planning further ahead or considering the consequences of her actions or how it might go wrong. smth like Korra if anyone's familiar with her character which would fit well with mavuika's status as an archon and the expectations that her people set on her to fight back the abyss and save the land.
So, kind of like Noelle, but more extreme.. I can get behind that!
If she was written like Korra, I would have liked her
Yeah korra without the hot headedness
Except she wasn't brash and was well aware of the consequences of her plan and how much of a hail Mary it was. She just considered the consequences of capitano's plan to be worse, something she thought about before he was in the picture
@isdrakon9802 they're some professional lore writers. i'm sure they can figure smth out. im just a fan tryjng to make the best of what we were given so take it with a grain of salt xd
Every archon has only gotten more complex as time has gone on. Each new archon since Morax has had some conflict with their nation’s ideals and it has reflected in their character arc.
Ei’s writing was awful, but you can definitely see some crumbs of what they were trying to do. Her arc is about learning to let go of her need for control because of her fear of loss and change. She must come to recognize her people’s will and respect it.
Nahida’s story ties in to the themes of Sumeru and Dendro as a whole: coming together and sharing in knowledge and community. She has to learn to believe in her power and come to acknowledge her compassion and strength by all of her newfound friends. (and i think it helps that, for me, sumeru had one of the best casts in the game. The way all of the unrelated characters and story beats came together to support her in the end was just ~chef’s kiss~.”
Furina had by far the best story out of all of the archons. She is in appearance the god of justice, yet her situation in life was nothing but unjust. Forced to play a fraudulent role with no end in sight, always having to put on an act because if anyone realized the truth, all of Fontaine would be destroyed and her efforts would be in vain. The way Hoyo made sure of the way we would react to her at first - assuming she’s out of touch and moronic - and the way they kept that momentum going all the way up until they dropped the 4.2 update and we learned the truth was amazing storytelling. I think her character carried the 4.0 story, and is why so many remember it fondly.
And at last we have Mavuika. On first glance, her story is moving and tragic. She gave up everything to put a plan into action to save her homeland - and soon the world - from utter destruction. Her character is marked by maturity, optimism, and loyalty to her people. Her belief is that the shared experience of Natlan’s history - the sacrifices, the glories - is the most important thing of all. This puts her at direct odds with Capitano, who, despite them sharing the same goal of saving Natlan, believes the heart of a nation are the people themselves. This conflict was so interesting, and I was looking forward to seeing them butt heads and test each other’s ideals. *cough* *cough*.
The theme of Natlan is: No one fights alone. I’ve seen people criticize it, call it weak, but I disagree. The story isn’t about the archon, it’s supposed to focus on Natlan and its people. Their entire culture, for thousands of years, has been centered around fighting the abyss. They eat, drink, and sleep warfare. Naturally the story should center the tribespeople because this is their story, not hers alone.
Instead most of the main characters get sidelined in the stadium while their archon and the traveler fight their final boss for them. So fucking lame.
Mavuika’s conclusion arc should’ve been taking a backseat and trusting her people to fight the abyss dragon themselves. Maybe she could’ve dealt the final blow or something, idk. The way Hoyo wrote the 5.0 story, everything was leading up to all of the playable characters teaming up and fighting together, but i guess hoyo realized that wouldn’t sell as well, so they changed it. I have no clue, I’ve been scratching my head since 5.3 dropped as to how they could’ve dropped the ball on the finale this badly.
In conclusion (or tldr): Every archon’s story mirrors the ideal of their nation. Mavuika’s arc bummed a lot of us out because Hoyo wrote her role to be secondary to the main cast, a leader and mentor figure, and then pulled an UNO reverse card at the end and sidelined everyone else to give her arc an unimportant focus that rings empty in the face of the story.
Even if her people had the power to fight Gosoythoth (which they likely didn't), they literally couldn't even enter the Night Kingdom to approach him cos of the sheer amount of Abyssal contamination. Only she and Traveler had the resistance to get close enough to fight and defeat him.
I can kind of get behind this actually but It had been established that she was the only other one capable of staying in the Night kingdom for a long period of time besides the Travler who could basically just chill there because they are completely immune to the abyssal corrosion. Overall acts I, II, IV were great, act V was ok and act III made me want to off myself
@@RGA301092 then write a different ending, one that actually resonates with the "no one fights alone" theme instead of mechanically contradicting it.
"No one fights alone"
While 6 playable characters with Visions where who are clearly powerful than the NPC and Saurian ghosts that appeared later on--- were outside while delievering whatever their power of friendship speech to the Traveler and Mavuika😂😂
@@ArmorFrogEntertainment If Kachina had not understood what the disappearance of the flame meant, that Mavuika had called the flame to her to step through it, and started singing the ode of resurrection, I don't know that Mavuika would have been able to bring Traveler back when Goysosoth killed him/her. It is implied through the whole story that the ode grants the willpower of the people to the archon, to bring back what is lost. I don't know, I felt like that was enough. Some people complain that the singing was lame because "the power of friendship" but it is a firmly established mechanic of Natlan.
I really hope they do better in snezhnaya, natlan as a whole just felt so out of place, I did pull for mavuika but the only reason I did is because I liked her design, but the thing is I wouldve liked mavuika as a character if she wasnt the pyro archon and instead someone else from another nation that couldve fit her design better. Her whole design felt so out of place with the whole biker theme that I fail to understand why they couldnt have just used the design she had in the trailer that released (with the ancient heros). They couldve done so much better with mavuika, and natlan as a whole , but instead it just ended up being so dissapointing and im afraid that snezhnaya will end up the same (and the tsaritsa too) but only time will tell ig
I hope so too! but the good thing is that Hoyoverse switches developer teams every Nation
So we at least know that the same people who worked on Natlan won't work on Snezhnaya, so there's hope
More like fire them@@zhongliswallet6241
I think they know they can t mess up Snezhnaya, everyone was waiting for it since 1.0
Snezhnaya is at least based os proper culture. Not some uncivilized africans.
I totally agree. Mavuika 500 years ago was so lovely, especially the moments she spent with her sister.
What I find frusturating is that a lot of this could be resolved if they had just implemented the lore from the “Sunset” animation into the main game. People shouldn’t have to watch content on RUclips, outside of the main game, in order to fully understand a character. It is quite literally just a stupid approach to a character. Like, imagine if they never told us Furina was suffering for 500 years, and she was just a “human version of Focalor”, and the only way to figure it out was to watch a short on RUclips. That is absurd.
I really hate this tactic to storytelling because it means the players has to do bloody homework, that is just bloody wavk
they knew to rehash the arlecchino cinematic into the game, so im not sure why they didnt do it here lol
I mean, maybe itll get expanded on in game with her second sq? But even then we kind of already know what we know, it feels weird having to wait like 5,6 months just for them to talk about it again.
@@GhoSt-mu2io They did this with Firefly in Star Rail.
Honestly, I don't watch the starrail shorts. If it mattered, it'd be in the game.
Pissed off a lot of Firefly simps because I called her a basic waifu and people try to go "noooo she like lost a bunch of friends and stuff" really? Then why isn't it in the game?
Sorry, I'm not doing homework for another game. She's presented as a basic boring waifu in game, so she IS a basic boring waifu in game.
@@jadecoolness101 FIREFLY IS BORING !!!! Say it louder to the back benchers.
I was so hyped waiting for that "Furina moment" to happen to Mavuika and make us see her in a new light... I'm devastated.
That's why you should never have high expectations for a Hoyoverse storyline lmao
@@ExceedRed I mean Hoyo's storylines are good, their storytelling is bad. In Natlan, both are mid/bad.
Imagine wielding such a legendary weapon only to attack with a fucking motorcycle
Like you said in your previous video, Natlan Archon quest is filled with missed opportunities. Mavuika characterisation is one and there's so many little things that adds up leaving a kinda "meh" result at the end.
They did managed to kinda redeemed the Inazuma arc with Raiden second quest. Let's hope for the best (thou I tend not to with this game any more since it allows me to not being truly disappointed =P).
Copium
Pyro gnosis is still there
Natlan generally feels like my least favourite nation, even when compared to monstadt. Its a shame, really.
A goddamn shame. Land of war my ass.
it innovated in exploration but regressed in every other category
The story and characters were bland, but the exploration and the region is amazing. Ochkanatlan in particular.
To me natlan Is still the third best nation after sumeru and fontaine
@@DAVFEARONfr the nation just happens to be in war
@@DAVFEARON fr 🤣🤣🤣
You helped put the finger on part of why I felt so uncomfortable with the final act of natlan, I also wasn't a fan of the traveler-glazing during the story either honestly. US getting a parade and a crown and SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS? while the archon of the nation who really did most of the fight is trying and failing to slink off to die was so DEEPLY weird as a choice, not to mention the even weirder choice of having the old man recount the archon quests we JUST went on to some kids and having the kids conclude that the traveler is EVEN MORE AWESOME THAN PERFECT ARCHON. The "retelling" scene went on way too long I kept waiting and waiting for it to cut away and just going "Why..."
I wasn't a fan of Mauv having no struggles, but the traveler themselves barely struggled either. Natlan was just going to parties and getting praised over and over, the war arc was interesting but in the context of the no-struggle nation falls a bit flat sadly. Even the interlude resists every impulse to allow even the npc characters to struggle by showcasing magical abyss-PTSD that's disabling and hugely impactful and.... fix it with one sip of a potion! It has side effects, but they aren't shown, deliberated about, or considered really, AND the cure is foisted onto some of the characters without any sort of informed consent, overridding any of their potential wishes for recovery.
I think if the natlan tech incorporated the big thing that was unique about their nation THE SAURIANS it would've gone over way better imo, but since we can pick up and use the saurians in the overworld I guess they decided incorporating even scales or feathers into the tech to make it fit in with the settings wouldn't stand out enough to make people buy the characters or something? or somehow going for some wild "anti abyss" glowy stuff could've worked. For that matter it's wild we mostly got human and dinosaur enemies when the abyss has been attacking forever and ever, no new abyss monsters? Ah well...
weird choices overall for the nation.
Seriously, the tralever-glazing is really too much and truly unnecessary. It's so painful to witness.
I…. I really wanna redesign mavuika… she’s just.. she doesn’t feel like an archon.
Edit: I started redesigning her immediately after I posted this comment lol
I wish hoyo used her design from 500 years ago. She was so pretty and she actually looked like a warrior
@@joslin4384same
+ she also looked like someone who is active from Natlan (similiar style of clothing to NPCs, not this “Natlan’s got talent” show of every playable dressed as if they are from a different game entirely, not even just from a different nation of teyvat, lol)
@@joslin4384 Please, she would get the same complaints Ei gets if she actually had a skirt.
The world building had holes in Natlan. Not just the tech, the effects of war was not present in the open world. Very inconsistent and Mavuika’s character building was done haphazardly through self exposition and game external media (animation). Also, it did not build on the information we had about Natlan pre version 5. You can say they only had an idea at the start of development but the standard for other nations wasn’t there. Being OP is a marketing tactic to compensate with the characterization and story imho. I hope they go back to basics otherwise it’ll be another Game of Thrones.
can you explain the game of thrones part i dont know anything about it
@@normalbirid79the last two seasons were such a throw away, fans thought they were being punked and it was just a joke. It was so bad.
@@normalbirid79it’s basically biggest miss in TV history. It started off as an amazing story due to its characters and lore of the world and by the last two seasons all characters were butchered by stupidly bad writing
@@normalbirid79last 2 seasons were rushed to hell and back because the producers wanted to work on a bigger project. Disney star wars
while I agree with you but it really rubs me the wrong way how people have such a wrong perception of natlan's technology. Natlan as a nation isnt as technologically or academically advanced as sumeru or fontaine but natlan is where multiple dragon civilisations existed and they had tech for even space travel. Moreover only xilonen has made only a handful of things from the things they excavated , that too runs using phlogiston only.
How in gods name did we go from Furina to Mavuika ??? Like how is that even possible
I’m not even sure what you’re trying to ask tbh…
I love Furina but you're comparing 2 fundamentally different characters regardless of them both being Archons.
@@MrSquishy0 It has nothing to do with Furina being an archon , it's just the character writing quality that has taken a complete shift not just the archon who is the main focus but the entire cast , Natlan as whole is major downgrade in character writing aspects
Because comparing a Lion to a Kitten is peak story direction
@@Vergilcore they're obliviously talking about the character stories not the strength
Your critiques are all totally valid. I had a LOT of problems with Citlali too. We're told she's experienced, but shown immaturity, as though 25 year old writers and VAs struggled to imagine a long life and any wisdom it might bring.
Whoever wrote citlali should take notes from Frieren on how to write a long living character
the problem is that they know how to write wise characters, see zhongli, kazuha, ayato even hutao, they just chose not to do so, and I have no idea why, if they wanted to go that way there has nothing to stop them from making citlali young and inexperienced while also having a lot of talent
To the same end, a lot of wisdom comes from interaction, the people that we consider wise have spoken to lots of people on innumerable occasions; citlali is very clearly a hermit who cuts everyone off to protect herself from grief with the traveler being the first since her friend from so long ago that it took an entire questline to find out one her life's greatest achievements because no one could verify it. This would lead to certain immaturities when interacting with people a lot more closely than you've been used to for at least about a normal human life or 2. That said. she does seem calm when the stakes are high and the cards are down but I do agree that it would feel mice is she actually had some words of wisdom to impart in those moments, unless she did and I just missed them
While valid, it’s not Venti, Furina, Miko, or what we’ve seen from Alice radiates maturity either. They really just do and act as they please and then act accordingly when it’s time to do their job before continuing their hobbies.
@@ApatheticNomad That's an excellent point. She's supposed to be socially stunted. This could have been conveyed in English with better casting. I love Skyler Davenport as March 7th, but they sound lost as Citlali.
It feels like hoyo wants to compete the tech and gameplay of wuthering waves when in fact genshin has its own aspect that players love. Hoyo really failed to see this
Or the fact the diverse cast of characters is what attracted people to the game which 5.x completely lack
Thisssss! You can tell Natlan was their experiment to find a way to freshen up the game due to the competition. I’ve been reading comments from the CN side and even they find natlan to be extremely lacking.
They clearly tried with switching animations and mulani kinnich gameplay
@@Josh-qt5zi yeah.. hoyo seems to think that making less cool male characters is going to make game more popular.. nope.. genshin became super popular even in west bcause it wasnt the usual waifu-only gacha game
@@sephoraortega7586 genshin's biggest competitiors are HSR and the korean dating sim, i doubt they're worried about wuwa
It's fine if some characters don't have standout flaw or quirk, I can enjoy more simple ones like Robin from hsr and Tohru from Fruits Basket. Genshin has its fair share of mellowed capable characters too, but what makes Mavuika stands out from them is that they spent SO MUCH time to glaze her. Damn near every moment she's on screen there's going to be someone praising her or just build up how awesome she is. The marketing for her is quite aggressive too. It affected not only her character but also made her relationship with others so boring.
She has her flaw, but the way it's presented doesn't look like a flaw. And every character has to make sure you focus on how good she is at everything. Seriously why is she good at every hobby she picked?
some people are just built like that y'know. Talented in most things. i've met such ppl irl
and even then tohru actually does have flaws that are revealed later into the show
Tohru actually have some flaws, unlike Mavuika.
I hate the Genshin kit trend where characters can have some of the cleanest looking normal attacks, only for their gameplay to not use them whatsoever. I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels the same way about Mavuika’s playstyle, especially after seeing how awesome she was in the fight against Capitano.
To me, my feelings of Mavuika can be summed up by putting her character artwork alongside the other Archons. The other Archons are all characters. Mavuika is a function tied to her having a motorbike.
Yeah bro all that crazy moves in fight with capitano just to end up using a bike to fight
THIS.When you pull Mavuika you are pulling her BIKE,not her.How much of ideally challenged of genshin team to think that yeah Mavuika loves bikes,we should glue her ass in the bike for 3/4 of main attack animation,when in the story animation she look like raw god of war that slice,punch and kick enemy and capable of flying like superman?why not using badass movement like that?i mean they can copy dehya burst moveset,make it a switch state and controlable,giving it more badass sfx,vfx and bigger number dmg and she will be more like literal god of fcking war not god of bike
This is why I moved from Genshin. The characters don't feel like characters. In all honesty, how much of the characters we are using fully? I would say not much. Most of them are skill bots or ultimate bots. 9 out of 10 characters you rarely use their normal attack.
you're supposed to look at the enemies during combat, not at your own character
@@Barni2212 first time i see someone complained that there are too few on-fielders
Regarding your questions about the lore: no, she was not conscious during these 500 years, and as such did not have all this time to prepare herself. This is shown by a few things in the world, including her not remembering her sister's deeds, or locals finding strange that Mavuika looked just like the statue from the Archon of 500 years ago, among others. As such, she is designed as having become perfect at nearly everything in the span of the maybe 30 years she had to actually live, which is indeed quite questionable. I've read almost all the lore available since 5.0 and have found no explanation given for this, either.
EDIT: to clarify, the knowledge that the Sacred Flames grants to the Archon is described as "knowledge and memory of this land," by Mavuika, which, given the context, described information (mostly about the inital rules of Natlan and how the Pilgrimage works) rather than practical skills.
On another topic, I'd like to thank you for being one of the few who do speak out on the matter! The Mavuika hype train has had a tendency to drown out the valid criticism on version 5 lately, and it's refreshing to see that some still expect a high standard from the game. Really appreciate your video essays for their honesty and accuracy.
She wasn't fully conscious but it definitely wasn't a blip and she's in the future. Also the sacred flame grants the knowledge and experience of the Land and Previous Pyro Archons to the current one
I’m not sure if this was in the game, though there probably was some detail about it, but on the wiki the sacred flame serves as a data bank of sorts?, which allows new pyro archons to obtain a vast amount of knowledge memories from previous archons and the land itself.
While she was competent, I don’t think she was perfect, which unfortunately doesn’t really come across in game.
@eden8498 I remember that as well, and would have liked to see Hoyo explore just how badly that could mess up your head.
Pretty much all of her emotional dissonance could be explained in a satisfying way by tying it back to, "congratulations, you now have a bunch of emotional connections to a enough dead people to fill a stadium, have fun trying to relate to regular people!"
@@MorgenPeschkeyea, this is exactly what I was hoping too and I'm really disappointed they didn't go there because it would actually make perfect sense and be a little, well, humanizing. Something that could engender empathy in the way Citlali's purposeful aloofness is explored in her story quest.
@@MorgenPeschke This would've been so SO good, and it would've made her a much more compelling character to me imo. They should've shown a bit more emotional turmoil, more mental dissonance. She's supposed to be "The human Archon", and yet, she feels like the least human of them all...
Out of all the archons, she is the ONLY one I don't like based on personality or backstory. Which sucks for me since she's visually my favourite character. Everything about her feels just like how saurusness feels about Act V of the Natlan Archon Quest: a dropped ball.
She's ridiculously inoffensive; she feels like she was carefully designed and manufactured to be sold as a product and a product alone. To appeal to everyone without having anything unique about her. Aside from her involvement in the Archon Quest and the backstory she was given, I can't find one thing about her that stands out.
Ooh I think you hit on something there, for their ups and downs and power fluctuations the other archons do feel more like people than the "human archon" mauvika... How stoic she is, how she never struggles, how she "looks cool" while fighting essentially, will not lose to anyone etc. It sounds like selling an action figure more than writing a compelling story about a character, even most superheroes struggle and fail and have moments of defeat and weakness, no matter how they come back or win in the end, they still HAVE failures that affect them in some way. Mauvika felt like the blandest type of shounen writing to me and I wasn't here for it. I hadn't dug hard into her lore or stories but the idea that there's still relatively little there is so disappointing.
what she can do as a character honestly for me, more than makes up for her bland personality and everything negative in between.
All i've been hearing in these echochambers literally just revolves around her personality and story, completely neglecting how powerful she is as a character and her positive traits that were also completely overlooked. While i do agree with some of them, i do think the hatred is way too forced sometimes to the point where the slander from some people makes it seem like she's a good-for-nothing character. Which is totally unfair for players who don't care much about her story and just wants to enjoy her as a character.
@@SinclairXOXO well ppl are still too biased with the natlan hate trend going on. I mean yes they have a reason to criticize natlan but i feel like it is an overreaction
The thing is, capable and kind, nearly OP and perfect archon/character can be interestingg
We literally have gojo satoru the perfect fighter/mentor somewhat that is portrayed to be very powerful. Yet he doesn't feel one dimensional bc the author gave him several traits that humanizes him (being very childish, a bit of a douchebag, and super annoying towards ppl around him)
Mavuika could have been very ambitious with lofty ideas (like Itto) but they might have run out of adorable flaws 😅 everything is taken so they just gave her the messiah complex
Even in Genshin, you have characters like Zhongli and Neuvilette who fit a similar mold. They are immensely powerful, have upstanding character, and yet are way more interesting as characters compared to Mavuika.
@@XylonLionheart neuvi's writing was pretty emotional. I wasn't interested that much in him during the first AQ (understandably so) but neuvi's characterization also succeed due to his dynamic with focalors-melusine and navia.
On top of that he's given the silly traits which we all like, rating teyvat's waters and the story of rain with hydro dragon being sad.
It's all these elements that are missing from mavuika tbh. Dynamic character relationship + silly traits for the cherry on top
And people still hate on him, you can't please everyone
@@MrSquishy0 ppl hate gojo bc he's annoying (as far as what I stumbled upon in that fandom) so that's a testament that his writing is effective
Like furina who was supposed to tick you off due to her incompetence.
You know it's not because natlan has futuristic tech, for me the actual problem is that it doesn't blend in with the rest of the world and its world building
Yes. Usually the futuristic tech is from ancient civilizations or is limited (like in Fontaine). In Natlan Xialonen builds modern tech like it's nothing.
@@DiaryofNatalieRose Hello there, speed reader! Did you know that Natlan used to be inhabited by an ancient civilization of dragons that wielded advanced tech? Did you also know Xilonen studied the ancient tech they left behind and is especially adept at her blacksmith job because she is well-versed in said tech?
@@EnderBroadcast bro I literally said ancient civilization in my comment. If anyone is speed reading it's you 😂
Agree with that. It's aesthetic issue for me, not gonna lie. Did they really have to go for "modern" bike instead of old model ones. That'd blend in better. Or maybe futuristic ones with wheels that aren't connected to the main body. That fits with the rest of the old civilization tech we've seen so far. But instead we get "modern", and that ruins it for me
@@EnderBroadcast and these dragons "advanced tech".... were motor-bikes? why would a dragon ride a motorcycle? in teyvat? in NATLAN? like there are no highways anywhere and the terrain is never flat. Like what?
They even almost answered the question at 6:38 in Chasca’s quest. Clearly they thought about how having this special tech could assist regular humans/humans who couldn’t fly with saurians specifically, but then it was just kind of… dropped after that.
because it's animal cruelty dumbass
they have to be technologically stunted cuz...reasons ya know cant be powercreeping on Fontaine...Amirite?
Lore wise, the unrivaled technology of Natlan is something I just can't brush off... like their only explanation is "oh phlogiston + xilonen goes brrrr" but like??????
A flying bike???? A flying gun???? A defying gravity skates????
Like we heard how revered Fontaine's tech was thanks to the years upon years of geniuses that worked in the institute that we can track back to René and Allain... yet Xilonen *ALONE* shatters all these creations in her short life span thanks to phlogiston??? How on earth would she not be one of the most famous people alive in all of Teyvat????
Yet everyone's response is "is a cool flying gun just get over it", "bikes are cool... don't think about it too much"
I really dont give a damn about lore and I enjoy it but it is funny that it's kinda like Vibranium from Wakanda, it just does whatever lol
Some ppl are just braindead and just play the game for the sake of playing ig
This omfggg
The closest character when it comes to invention and tech/research is albedo BUT he got a thorough explanation abt khemia, rhinedottir and so on. The fact that he himself is the product of khemia is also another thing.
But xilo is a deus ex machina for all of these tech they have it's just downright lazy writing
welcome to natlan (disneyland) nation of war and dragons based on ancient meso america theme, we have :
-Dude who has pixel pet, loli who ride a beyblade, cowboy elf who floats with giant gun, girl who use roller skate and use DJ board
-Archon that wear latex and ride motorcycle somehow and actually a mary sue
-dragons? more like basic pokemons
-wartorn nation and tribes suffering? more like sunshine and rainbow and everyone is partying 24/7
-power of friendship
@@quanlinglingdingle6122 We also have 20 year old granny. She best girl tho.
@@zukodude487987 erm actually.. she's 100+ years old 🤓👆
@@angelsvsp.. she just acts like a tween in all her animations, but trust, she was made to look like a grown adult 🎀
One question, do you play Wuwa?
dont mind her design but her personality just feels so bland to me and it feels like hoyoverse desperately wants to sell her ( ik they are a company so revenue is important to them but for her they seem to do so much)
All the haters may go to hell. Mavuika is one of the best character of the game. After Furina, she is the most lovable Archon. She is always ready to sacrifice herself for her people. She has the perfect personality for a perfect Archon. She is the ray hope in darkest time. Mavuika ❤
@chrisevans9882 how do you click on a video about why someone doesn't like Mavuika and then expect Mavuika fans?
@@chrisevans9882 This video and comment section is not the place for a comment such as this. Because you're worshipping this character because of your personal tastes and perceptions everyone else is wrong?
@nanqros3I'm starting to think some of these are bots.
@@dovemaidenWhy not there vocalizing there opinion. Just because it's not the concensus here doesn't mean it should be said I think a bit of positivity in a (Let's be honest) overly negative section is good
Honestly what people need is hindsight. People are fresh from the experience and are reaching out for negativity
It happens every year
I kinda wish I enjoyed her - it's been forever since I wished for anyone 😩
i'm runnign out of characters to build haha
Not into Citlali either? She has been one of my favorites introduced characters and you can play them with other pyro dps or Neuvillette
@ Disliked her in the earlier quests - I get what they were going for, but for me someone having trauma doesn't justify them lashing out at others. Definitely a MUCH better-written and more rounded character than the others, but just one I disliked a fair bit.
Her tribal quest was fun though, and definitely did enough to make me empathise with her more. Gonna be pulling on her rerun though, rather than spending primos right now!
I understand you... Goodluck in future character pulls.
I wish I liked the Natlan characters more, Mavuika included. So far I’ve only pulled for Kinich (Spiderman grapple go brrrr) but even then I mostly pulled because I liked his gameplay not because I fell absolutely in love with him the way I did with Lyney. Here’s hoping the next region will be better
Same here. Love Kinich’s gameplay during battle.
Pulled some characters out of boredom (u-u). Interesting gameplays so it's primo worth. I am not happy with Mavuika and Citlali as characters, but boy they help my account atleast..... I need to get Xilonen for Wrio team next.
I'm sure Sneznaya will be great. Natlan is pretty much a filler
Made me think who among the “boring” characters we have are even more interesting than Mavuika, an archon:
Ayato? Albedo? Alhaitham? Cyno? All massively competent characters but there’s mystique, humor and personality. Even Raiden has her quirks.
I’m happy for those who like Mavuika. At least they’re not disappointed. 😅
Im sorry but as an albedo simp, seeing albedo categorized as boring is kinda funny to me
No offense, i get his character isnt for everyone. But to me he's genshin's no.1 most interesting character personality and lore-wise
(Dont forget he eats spider and has dysfunctional family across the teyvat map lol)
@@bubblesparksoh same! He literally has a whopper flower twin! 😂 others just focus on his kit but story-wise, one of the goats!
Really even a plank board has more personality than Mavuika
@@ArthurShotgun😂😂😂
I mean, they've been around longer than she has tho? Her story isn't over yet
Biggest plot hole in Natlan is..Do they remake the Statues of the 7 whenever a new Archon appears? 🤣 this is why this didn’t work for me at all..entire time I had that thought in my head.
Also it would’ve made more for a compelling story if Natlan divided between Capitano and Mavuika’s plan tbh. It would make an interesting plot line (and If I am not mistaken something like that was shown in Chaska’s CQ aka tribe thingy). I hoped they would play into Mavuika’s overconfidence at some point and make her slip up since A LOT of things did change in 500 years and that mistake would split Natlan..but nah she ended up being perfect until the very end
Honestly this is a really big plot hole when you consider how previous nations handled it. In Inazuma, Makoto and Ei were twins, so the statues could have just been Makoto the whole time. In Sumeru, Rukhadevatta and Nahida looked identical after the former shrank in size, so again, the statues could have been both of them. Fontaine is the first time we see where a statue seems to have been changed when the role of Archon was passed over, because it's clearly Focalors and not Egeria. But we also never really see Egeria clearly enough to know whether they looked significantly different.
But then what the heck, Natlan? Shouldn't the statue be Xbalanque then? If they change the statue for each Archon (which seems unrealistic with how the statues are clearly Celestial in nature), then Kachina wouldn't say it's a coincidence that it looks like Mavuika. Did they lose they ability to change how it looked because Mavuika was in stasis? So like, fuck all the Archons who came after her in that 500 year period, right??
@ ikr? 🤣 That was what I was thinking entire time. So everything all other archons did for 500 years (Including our goat Murata who didn’t even get a mention) just didn’t matter at all because Mavuika is biblically accurate and correct archon after all 💀 like bruh..The most annoying stuff I always hated in any anime is when EVERYTHING goes to the “plan”, like Teyvat changed a lot in 500 years my guy and so did the Abyss especially since we know what mimi-floras are a thing. Also how tf did Mare Jivari disappear 20 or so years ago when Bennett was found there as a baby and he is clearly not 20, or an adult for that matter 🤣💀
I actually think most of the statues were made 500 years ago. I don't think they were there before, like during the archon war. Mavuika was already the archon 500 years ago, Ei had a twin still was the archon during that time, Nahida, Venti, Furina, and Zhongli archon. Read somewhere they weren't there after the Archon war, but I'm not really sure
@@HerrscherOfFate-x8p it would make sense that Statues are made after Archon War ofcourse, because thats when “7 seats were opened up” (I forgot who said that it was probably Zhongus). Also thats when they supposedly got their respective Gnosis (Ik Archon war never happened in Sumeru, Deshret refused gnosis so Rukkha got it because she was last God alive in Sumeru, and Natlan obviously they didn’t have Gods only Dragons so far If I am not mistaken)
Now when I think about it, it seems Celestia chopped up 3rd Descender after (or during Archon war) then 🤔 I mean they needed to make Gnosis out of their body…
Something I want to add in terms of Mavuika’s design is that every single (literally each and every) Natlan character has tattoos on their bodies, feathered accessories, patterns, fun and interesting colors, charms, and if they are female, at least one braid in their hair. Maybe it was me making expectations out of nowhere, but Mavuika has NONE of those. What a missed oppurtunity. She could still have the flame hair, but the biker outfit feels so so so out of place.
she has them during her burst on her face and chest
I honestly feel as if they had the whole quest unplanned except the self sacrifice of capitano and they just tried to make everything lead up to that moment, the fact that they made it poorly is another thing entirely
the reason i skipped her was mostly the whole having too have natlan characters for her to work properly i understand she doesn't need them but as someone who hasnt pulled for a single natlan character it just not a good feeling.
For me, mauvika doesnt feel like an archon. I actually forgot she was the god of specifically war.
Each archon has a divine ideal that they worship/obssess over, often to a fault. The opinions than an archon has about their ideals are rather unique compared to the rest of the cast.
Mauvika doesnt obssess about war the same way venti obssesses about freedom. She wants to end a war. And her opinions on war are the same as the natlan characters, traveller and the player. Its immediately understandable why someone would care about stopping a war to help their people, but its not obvious why someone would care about contracts or eternity.
One idea i have for the pyro archon's ideal of war is justification/recompense.
After watching her people suffere, losing her friends and family and being caught up in her 500 year plan mauvika is desperate for success and cat handle defeat.
When she sees someone be wronged she pushes them to take retribution. She finds battles exhausting but she goes over the top in each one cuz its her belief that she's fighting until one day theres peace.
Eventually learns that the abyss cant be fully stopped which she takes terribley whilst denying the reality of the situation.
Her story would revolve around how she feels entitled to recompense after suffering for so long but having to grapple with reality that her hardwork and pain wont be fully rewarded and that she has to find peace even though hard times are never gone for good.
I hate that the writers have some very obvious pet characters that never get called out in the story. Furina got nasty glares after the Poisson disaster, but characters like Arlecchino or Mavuika just get nothing but praise. I wouldn't dislike these characters so much if at least the narrative acknowledged whenthey did something wrong.
Right remember during the sumeru saga how nahida was constantly insulted and belittled by the sages because they thought so little of her and she herself constantly self ridiculed cause she thought she couldn't even save her people, that subtle nuances made me like her more. Mavuika is a strong person and that's literally it
Turning Arlecchino into "mOrAlLy GrAy" when she's clearly been described as evil by Childe was probably the 2nd worst writing decision. Only to be beaten by this disastrous region
@@heisansberg2347 I am convinced arleccino was supposed to be like her mother but they retconned that
HUGE AGREED
The worst part is that, even if there are bad rumours and nasty glares, it’s not shown - it’s talked about in their soulless texts of dialogues of NPCs (like those two fatui in front of Mond waypoint after any AQ or just any fatuus in general in cities upon asking about things transpired in the nation they’re stationed in). Like. At least do this during major quests!!! It’s not like we aren’t forced to walk incredibly slowly while listening to characters and p*mon yap, put on some visuals and show crowds whispering to each other with their text bubbles!!!
Bot for hoyo thats really too much to ask for 😔
@heisansberg2347 I'm pretty sure it's because of the Chinese censorship. I don't think ur allowed to have a playable character that's evil (correct me if I'm wrong). It's probably why I didn't like her character, even tho she was my most anticipated when the fatui trailer came out. It bothers me how she's liked by the traveller and other fontaine characters. She runs an orphanage that basically churns out soldiers for a highly radical and violent military group 😭 HOW R WE JUST SKIPPING OVER THIS!
As someone who really likes Mavuika, I do understand where a lot people are coming from.
Honestly appreciate videos like yours.
Same
Mavuika is one of the best character of the game. After Furina, she is the most lovable Archon. She is always ready to sacrifice herself for her people. She has the perfect personality for a perfect Archon. She is the ray hope in darkest time. Mavuika ❤
Thats most peoples issues. Shes too perfect to where she feels like cardboard, and lacks complexity @chrisevans9882
Focaloes and Rukkadeveta already sacrificed. So Mavuika isnt an exception.
@@chrisevans9882
Believe me, they will reconsider their opinion when they learn to read and think adequately. Now it is fashionable in the community to hate Natlan and everything connected with it, breeding general negativity. And "negativity" has always been a synonym for this "community".
Genshin character writting must be very hard and exausting,as writers are forbiden from doing certain things with characters (like giving them love intrest aside from hinting they're traveler fangirl/boy or breaking the status quo,or giving them negative traits)
Another thing is i cant wait til Mavuika concept arts leak,and it turns out they were way more unique and intresting
fuck are you saying? you wanted a conquescador design for Mavuika? that'd be the most racist thing they could ever do. Making an Archon the colonizer??
Have you never seen the toreador/carnival versions of Mavuika? I was a big fan of the toreador design and very bamboozled when she was finally revealed to be a biker chick.
And people thought i was wrong for thinking the quests were kinda boring. I held off hoping the final chapter was where all the interesting twists and turns come in and nothing. Mauvi was flawless, almost no struggle or depth. Even the animated stories made no meaningful contribution to her character, you could skip it and miss nothing vital in the story or character development. She didnt even seem all that sad when her people died.
Natlans story was just, we are at war with the abyss and we push them back in a final showdown with no struggles, the end.
Did we play the same missions? Natlan was losing and had been losing the entire time. It took all of Natlan, The Fatui, led by the #1 Harbinger and the main character to win.
@oojimmy52 Yes Natlan was losing, that is how any story goes, things are bad and the new hero on the block comes in to save the day, mr.to-my-knee oh sorry i meant Tumaini.
i was waiting for the twists as well, there were so so so many interesting things mentioned at the start of the quest that could have been developed into one final huge plot twist.
great video. I feel exactly the same way about her, it's actually refreshing to see so many of the character problems highlighted in such a concise video. Natlan genshin feels to me like a victory lap, the devs think they can no longer fail and are throwing wild ideas at the wall thinking anything they do will always work. Mavuika suffers from most of Natlans problems but packaged inside a single unit.
Her outfit and design puts me off so much. Not even the bike.
It’s the costume, the shoes, the overwhelming hair
The most underwhelming Archon for me. I expected more, I wanted more, and I got so much less. She feels weak as a character overcompensating in the kit power for lack of depth. There were so many things that I wanted from the pyro archon and I feel like they underwhelmed and missed the mark. Yeah I can see where people would find her visually attractive but she lacks depth and I don't know if that was planned or if it happened by accident. Did I pull for her? Yes I did, but only because I had the wishes, was almost at guarantee hard pity and she reminds me of Fenghuang of Vicissitude Fu Hua from HI3 even though she's not an alternate to her either. Mavuika just doesn't hit the right touches for me, and I think you touched a lot of why. She really was very Mary Sue - she lacks depth and is the most underwhelming archon of the lot. That makes me sad - the archons have always been something more, something larger and yet here she without any flaws and unable to seemingly do any wrong. There is no failing when Mavuika is involved. Moment of truth? I didn't think she was going to perish in the archon quest - I called that someone would take her place because they never gave her any consequences throughout the story. Everything poured off her like water off a ducks back. I had no need to worry for her because everything seemed to work out effortlessly. She didn't do much of anything just waited for her heroes to wake up while mastering every and any skill. Mind you part of that "I had no fears for her" came from their inability to build any tension by 1) not giving her a flaw and 2) not giving any high stakes pressure moments as they went through. She was the embodiment of the arc - flat with moments of actions and emotion, but mostly just walking and sitting around and doing nothing and not being able to emotionally invest because there seems to be no consequences for the perfect archon ever for anything. "She made her sacrifice and now all is forgiven and she is all powerful" - that's not how good tales are written but you do you HoYo.
She feels like a complete Mary Sue
It's ironic to see The "HUMAN" Archon without any flaw,weaknesses at all
The rest of the Archons feels a lot better (in both character design and writing) than Mavuika tbh
What are they better at? Mavuika is much closer to humans than the other archons. That's the whole point of the character. That she's a human with divine powers, not an absolute deity. Which archon would stand up for her people and lead them into battle as a leader? Nahida? Venti? That's ridiculous. Archons are emotionless egoists, they don’t care about people.
@@kianamain-sp”Archons are emotionless egoists” have you actually played the game? Venti wants his people to be free so he doesn’t rule them, but he is always helping them behind the scenes. (Also, have you forgotten about why they became the Venti we know?) Zhongli willingly passes the torch to humanity but is always ready to step in and save them if need be. Nahida was done wrong by humans yet she still loves her people and helps them. Focalors sacrificed herself for the sake of her subjects. Ei is the only one who fits the description, but she at least tried to redeem herself.
Then we have Mavuika with the brilliant master plan of taking a 500 year long nap while Natlanease suffered.
I hate this term, but unfortunately Mavuika is a Mary Sue, nothing she brings to the table, her personality is just being "incredible in everything she does and an admirable person" that's all, There is absolutely nothing bad about her, no flaws, no problems... Venti is a God with responsibility issues and alcoholism, Zhongli has adjustment issues and is broken, Ei's a social weirdo with dictatorial tendencies, Nahida is innocent and inexperienced and Furina is human in her entirety, How is the Pyro Archon, who was supposed to be the humanity of the group, the least human among them?
Mavuika is Rey, and Mihoyo reduced Capitano to another Kylo Ren who saves her in the end. She's apparently supposed to be this Himeko, and should've died because of it.
Haven’t watched the video yet but I already wanted to write a comment.
Mavuika feels so… perfect for a human. TOO perfect, with „no“ flaws or anything.. Like others are saying, she feels like a piece of cardboard. She doesn’t feel human at all.
I was much more interested in kinich, who appeared for 10 minutes in the quest, than Mavuika to be honest. His backstory is so compelling and ajaw is so weird that i can't help but want more of him
I know😭😭 Like kinich and ajaw had SO MUCH POTENTIAL, yet one of the most interesting characters in Natlan get the LEAST amount of screen time… I love Natlan but it disappointed me so much😢
My biggest fear is Skirk ending up like this
Or Tsarista
Mavuika's confidence should have been taken down a peg. We see that every pyro archon was assimilated by the abyss (or at least their doubts) and it wouldve been dope if she dies- leaving the traveler to shoulder the "hope" of natlan and the ode ressurects her with newfound strength.
At the start of Natlan I legit thought Mavuika's character arc would be that she tries to be perfect to prove she's just as, if not even MORE, worthy as the non-human Archons. And that she would be overconfident and mess up somehow and need help from others, teaching her a lesson about the power of friendship and that it's ok to have flaws (especially since the other Archons aren't perfect either).
But no, she's literally just the best at everything, lol.
Is it me or does Natlan feel like it was rewritten?
One of my friends theorized that there was a Natlan rewrite purge as Natlan might have had more controversial and stereotypical stuff tied to it because of Venti's voicelines relating the Archon and people from natlan being brought to Mondstadt as SLAVES! ☠️
That probably would have caused more issues, and because of that decided to scrap lore along with having Murata, who was probably meant to be the Pyro Archon, be replaced by Mavuika to go with their new human story line along with the other random ass stuff.....
There was more to it as well such as Wuthering Waves coming out, which made Mihoyo change Natlan a bit to compete.
Other reason for Rewrite theory: The lack of lore for Natlan being mentioned UNTIL SUMERU, even then we saw 0 NPCs from Natlan until Natlans release. By Inazuma, we had NOCs from all nations BUT Natlan.
@ wait the whole lore with Natlan people being slaves if removing that part of the lore wouldn’t that effect Eulas backstory?
@@knightx605yooo, tbh, murata’s a mistranslation and her name’s always been the same as mavuika - mostly cos the whole genshin manhua with vanessa came out in Mond times (or even earlier) and eng translation team (which is constantly failing my btw, you can look up actual chinese ppl explaining the whole “sworn brother” which eng team translated as “literal adopted into family brother”) had nothing to work with 👍🏻
@@knightx605but yeah i agree on all other points. wuwa definitely landed a hit on the executives 👍🏻
but goodamn!!! Vanessa was called one of Mavuika’s children. Her tribe literally managed to leave Natlan with no consequences to their mental health other than later being captured by nobility and brought in as slaves!!!
Like where is it???
All the AQ from Inazuma onward were clearly rewritten. Natlan was just rewritten badly.
I've pulled all the archon characters before her and she was someone I was expecting to pull, but lost interest over the story. I actually don't mind the bike attack animations and I actually like that they make her an ally from the start, but compared to Nahida and Furina's complex questline Mauvika just felt flat unfortunately
I find it hard to believe that the people who wrote the deeply moving stories and characters of Sumeru and Fontaine could be the same people who wrote the mostly shallow Natlan stories and characters. As if Hoyo pulled the good writers from this project to work on other projects. (And the same re: character designers.) I'm not saying that's what actually happened, but that's what it feels like to me.
I really get annoyed when people say natlan felt like typical shounen because even shounen mangas have more depth. Even the one like black clover and demon slayer if you chose to get invested do not break your suspension of disbelief the way natlan does.
I have suspicion they nerf the story to make her perfect, because it start to get weird at 5.2, like they want a brief patch to flesh out characters (like archon quest but a calm before storm moment) but even that so short!! This make me angry because it ties to how they waste Capitano's potential
1) bro WITNESSING the fall of khaenriah, we can GET INFO about it more, we can have a hangout/prep time with him, asking about the event 500 years ago & mavuika can join in & relate to him, as both are warrior that fought the unknown danger (this will make incels angry tho)
.
2) Capitano is the only one challenging mavuika's plan, they have this good banter of a leader & co leader do in a lot of story, they are foil for each other, literal fire & ice for crying out loud, every moment with him can be utilized for this
.
3) Capitano stole the story's emotional core for me, as he also a human (albeit with modified body), he fought the abyss & he cares about his people so much he want their soul to rest in peace, HE CHALLENGED A SHADE FOR THAT. I FEEL MAVUIKA IS NOT CONFLICTED ENOUGH TO SEE AN OUTLANDER DO THAT FOR HER COUNTRY & HERSELF, Yelan in interlude archon quest emote & show her fear when Xiao teleport them & about to self sacrifice himself, showing that she does not want to lose a team member from self sacrificing again, it's tied to her background of her carrying survivor guilt. Capitano just kinda mentioned briefly when- GIRL, thanks to his condition & sacrifice you are still standing, really pure luck, doesn't that mean a moment of reflection for you? Honorable or great warrior is not enough, you keep your life because fortunately there's another one want to take your place
I just compared Mavuika's character trailer with Raiden Shogun's.
I will tell you this, Raiden still gives me the chills that I had when it was first released. Raiden's presence is just Godly that you can't help but kneel over her absolute power.
HoYo don't make character this badass anymore, man.
raiden and signora both invoked a primal rage inside of me every time they were on screen. i hated them so much and wanted to kill them, was so happy when signora died. cried for furina just like neuvi did during her AQ. felt 0 emotion through all of natlan unfortunately
That's because Raiden Shogun and Mavuika are complete opposites, Shogun is more of a tyrant and Mavuika is more of a bastion of hope, both bad asses on their respective roles.
Right!? Even I go back to Zhongli’s trailer as per ritual because he set the standards for the trailers. His mere appearance in a cutscene excites me so much because he holds that much aura. Same goes with other characters like Neuvi, Furina, etc etc.
But for Natlan characters? Nah.
Hot take I really dont think Raidens trailer is good. I rank it Zhongli, Furina, Nahida, Mavuika, Raiden, Venti. Zhongli would be below Mavuika if it wasn't for the music in his trailer.
She was fighting thugs on a beach
For a lot of people genshin is an adventerous, beautiful lore heavy game with an interesting story that is pretty inclusive towards all kinds of players due the variety of things that you can do which i believed also resulted in it having more popularity than any other game in its genre (i was always pushed off by other gachas for how non inclusive and low quality they felt - by non inclusive i meant oversaturated and disoriented UI, the hardcore gameplay / niche communities , gooner culture etc but these days it feels like genshin is becoming more and more like them, the entirety of natlan archon quest felt like a sales advertisement for the characters it had no substance whatsoever, things that were important were rushed to finish off quickly and the things that had no importance where sooo dragged it just made me feel there was actually no story to be told here, just cooking stew to advertise these characters and get the region over with. there was no important lore apart from the sky break thingy which was just a 1 second moment which wasnt mentioned ever again.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts about Citlali overall. Idk if the hate for her is justified because of “cheap fanservice” allegation. Tbh I like her character more than Mavuika and her story quest solidified my liking for her
I love this take, including wanting folks who vibe with her to enjoy, while also making it clear why for some of us she's a skip.
Hopefully the massive power spike is an anomaly not the norm going forward.
What an injustice for himeko variant... I hope they won't screw up bronya
Feels like they took the complaints people had with Ei to heart, but they went overboard, and circled all the way to the extreme end. Between the two, I'm not sure which is the bigger base breaking character.
i think they misunderstood the complaints about Ei. Ei being a flawed ruler and causing a crisis among her people is an interesting theme, it's just that it's poorly executed. They instead thought the premise was the problem and rewrote Mavuika to be the very opposite of Ei
@@ungabunga5789They do have a tendency to freak out and overcorrect.
It’s crazy cause Furina and Nahida were great redirections for Archons anyway
@@aeso3555 we should Luigi Mangione Da Wei if they still don't listen seriously to the criticisms
Mavuika really needs to suffer a loss to show she’s not perfect. I’m really hoping that she takes a hit when her Gnosis is inevitably taken from her.
Tf you think the death of the 6 heroes and ongoing war on natlan isn't a loss? If she so perfect, she would deal with the abyss day 1.
She already took an L 500 years ago. She had to be carried away barely conscious by Tupac, the last member of the Six Heroes still standing and he also died soon after. The plan almost failed right there. Then it almost failed again at the 499th year had "Hine" not motivated her to keep going. The whole plan in the present day was precisely BECAUSE she couldn't win during the Cataclysm.
If she was perfect, she would have singlehandedly beat the Abyss for good during the Cataclysm.
She failed when thousands of people died when the abyss attacked because her plan to assemble the hero's didn't progress as fast as she thought it would.
people in the replies here are not being very effective with their argumentation. The points regarding the war with the abyss are the high stakes of the plot which do not have as much correlation with the characters and the more personal stakes which is the point of the entire video. None of these events that are listed by the people here have actually affected Mavuika in-game in any significant way because the plot demanded she and the traveler just steamroll everything as it were in a conveyor belt with no tension, nothing at all.
Mavuika's sister and the 6 heroes are used more as plot devices and never at any point do they impact mavuika's modus operandi in the entire archon quest as the video here literally points out.
Basically it doesn't matter if x people died, the impact the abyss had in their impromptu attack to natlan. Nothing ever touches or has any consequence on mavuika who only gets more praises as it happens and long after. She has "flaws" but is still Treated like she's perfect no matter what, which is the crux here.
6:00 thanks for articulating this, it just goes unsaid and is so jarring. They're so quick and willing to deus ex machina explain away so many things, the fact that they never put attention into explaining the world even in a half-arsed way is a noticeable shift in the game's coherence
I agree with the writing, as someone who likes her gameplay and design.
I had a little spark of inspiration when i finished her story quest, when she boasted her fight with Xbalanque, in a way to rewrite her.
Her being egotistical about her feats could seem like a way of reassuring herself, that she was the correct one to send years in the future for the final battle, that leaving behind her family was worth it, that even becoming the archon in the first place, was worth it. Make her family a touchy subject. She doesn't break down, but she shuts the conversation if someone brings it up.
I don't know if it sounds too similar to Furina, but then again, she was following a plan blindly, yet knowing everything depended on her, she never wanted to be an archon in the first place. While with this Mavuika, she's proudly the archon, but still has moments were she curses that all of this better be worth it.
Definitely one of the most anticipated characters in this saga, mostly due to her being an Archon, And I know some people don't like it but I personally like her design, she looks gorgeous, badass and hot, definitely a nice changeup for a character to show less skin but still tempting on the suit, I do love her motivation on wanting to end the abyss that's been affecting Natlan for so long, but throughout her speeches to everyone, she sounds like a politician, always yapping about how they're finally ending this cold war, and I do personally think it's used a bit too much, But I do personally like the theme of her gameplay, overall I think she's an okay Archon, I think Furina and Nahida are better in terms of story and lore perspective.
Character wise, i think her and zhongli are essentially the same character at two ends of their journey.
Both are:
1) powerful
2)lost loved ones and citizens
3)beloved leaders
However while zhongli is jaded, tired, and wishes to leave the limelight- Mavuika is young, spirited, and sociable (and loves the limelight)
This lends to a deficit on mavuika. Zhongli and mavuika are both paragons. They both try to the right thing 100% of the time. However, zhongli is tastefully kept out of the narrative because hes too strong. His quest revolved around hiding in the background with the tease that he might come out and solve all the issues. Mavuika never intends to hide, and from a writing standpoint- it makes her actions predictable.
I still enjoyed natlan 100% over liyue- but they shouldve gave mavuika time to build characteristics that arent just the paragon archetype.
Remember when Zhongli saved everyone with Xiao in the Chasm? They had the same thing with Kachina but the sauce wasn’t there in Natlan. Yeah, both nations actually are so similar! (I like Liyue more 😅).
@jet687 I think the liyue quest has multiple problems, but they did do well by giving zhongli a conflict that he can't solve with strength. (Which, while still boring to me- at least reveals a strategic side to him)
Well they both have married jp va😅/jk
@@jet687Natlan is a mockery of Liyue for that reason. The fact that Lantern Rite is gonna be juxtaposed with Nathan makes it all feel so cheap. Especially when EN voice acting is mostly cut off.
Here's my take as the one person in the comments who liked Mavuika as a character.
Mavuika's Unspoken Flaw:
- Mavuika's flaw is that she was willing to sacrifice herself in order to save everyone, when the whole motto of their nation is "No one fights alone." In the speaker's chamber in Act 1 or 2 (i cant remember) the player is given time to interact with all the different artifacts that she'd collected over the years and learn more about her. The entire section is so somber because she's remembering those she's lost. As what is basically a "General" for the "army" that is the people of Natlan, Mavuika was not given the time or space to be vulnerable. Her story quest does a pretty good job of explaining why she presents the way she does. It's also a nice breath of fresh air for her characterization because she's finally able to relax without the looming threat of screwing up a 500 year plan. The lore of the Ancient names is only slightly explained when Mualani receives hers. The memories & experiences of everyone who received the ancient name before you is then given to the newest bearer. Mavuika, having the Ancient name that belonged to all of the previous Pyro archons, pretty clearly had a lot of pressure/anxiety built up over the years. When she placed her life within the sacred flame, it's implied that her spirit had to make the entire trip into the future manually. So she did experience the full 500 years on her motorcycle, just driving through time. As foir the current day Flamestrider, it's made of secret source components, so thats why it's so out of place. It's made with old dragon technology. There's a line in her Teapot dialouge that explains why there arent more around. While she leads a nation of people to unity, she's had to make a lot of the journey alone. And tends to rely on only herself when things are on the line. The only reason she beat Gosoythoth is because she fought WITH the traveler. She hit Gosoythoth with the super saiyan punch like 3x and it did nothing until she had someone else with her.
Characterization:
- The main difference I see in characterization of the archon in Natlan vs previous nations is that much of Mavuika's characterization is optional. In Sumeru, the player is forced into an entire Archon quest in to learn about samsaras/how Nahida operates. In Fontaine, the entire story revolved around Focalor's plan. In Inazuma, Raiden was the antagonist for most of it so the player is again, forced to learn about the Archon. Liyue, we're trying to figure out who killed Rex Lapis. Mondstadt, literally interacting with Venti multiple times to move the plot forwards, and being force-fed exposition about Venti/Teyvat. In Natlan, Mavuika is openly known & revered by her people. Contrary to the previous archons, she is an active leader in her nation and actually like.. works. A LOT. Venti hates even being around for anyone to know he's the archon. Zhongli faked his death. Raiden had PTSD and went into self imposed Solitary Confinement with an android running the state. Nahida was imprisioned, and Furina was known/loved by her people but most respected Neuvillette as the end all/be all of Fontaine. All that said, due to the looming threat of the abyss, and bc the Traveler drops in at the 11th hour, there is not much time to learn about Mavuika. You get some insight into her backstory when she talks about Atea, then moments of characterization during the war arc when they're on comms back and forth. Not much to work off of, if the player isn't really looking for it.
[Anecdotally, imo, Mavuika is very reminiscent of many latina Matriarchs. A leader in their family, well revered and respected, but not often given the time or space to process things emotionally, due to the needs of the family. She gets things done and does all that is needed of her for others, while also neglecting herself in order to make sure that her family prospers. She is loved, and cared for by her nation (family) and gets praise/celebration, but also has her own issues that are not very surface level for everyone to see. My abuela was very similar before she passed a few years ago. To me, the subtext of her characterization came across very clearly. I don't speak for all Latina matriarchs, i'm just saying that's what i saw from my experience.]
Archon Quests:
- Also to be noted, the Natlan archon questline is the most "video-gamey" that we've had in a while. For Fontaine, theres like 4 combat sequences for the entirety of it. Meanwhile, Natlan has an entire arc where the player is fighting enemies, multiple times. There was a lot more interaction with game mechanics and less talking though plot points. Honestly, I really do understand why people don't like Mavuika. The story was too big around her to do justice & thoroughly develop her as a character. But I think that's more on the story beats being focused around the heroes of Natlan for 70%, Capitano for 15%, the war with the abyss for 10%, and leaving Mavuika with the final remaining 5%. Natlan's archon quest is about the liberation of a nation, more than any other Archon questline in the game so far. I don't think Mavuika is a bad character, I think the writing team took everyone's feedback about Sumeru's archon quest and they heavily retracted from the slower character driven story in favor of spectacle. I liked Natlan a lot because I felt like i was finally playing a game again, instead of reading through a visual novel.
how is self sacrifice to save everyone a flaw? huh? and either way that "flaw" carries no weight and amounts to nothing because she never sacrifices herself to save everyone. They just shoe-in capitano for that cuz the precious little incels could never lose their favourite perfect god waifu
@@homurastan2927 There's more to it than just self sacrifice, but i already wrote an essay before so i left out what i thought was obvious.
The entire theme of Natlan is fighting together against a common goal. Mavuika deciding *alone* that her sacrifice was what would end everything, is flawed in that: it was a decision she let almost nobody else in on. She wasn't working together to find a solution, she was just repeating the same mistakes of the previous Pyro Archons. Even towards the end of Act V, Citlali is the one who finds the traveler to try and get Mavuika to stop her sacrifice.
Capitano wasn't a shoe in at all, his story was foreshadowed immediately in the Archon quests from Act 1-2. If you didnt pick up on what was happening after his conversation with the Lord of the Night, idk what to tell you. His 3d model was not of a playable character as well, he had huge death flags all in his story, etc. It was kinda obvious.
At the end of Act V, when they're speaking with Ronova, Capitano is the one who points out TO Mavuika that she's ultimately not saving anything, and that her solution to die alone would be a band-aid solution to the overall issue that Natlan had with it's leylines/the Abyss.
Mavuika's flaw is that all she wanted to do was win the war, and that she wasn't thinking of her own future. Just the future of other people. She resigned herself to death for others, neglecting her own life. In her story quest, you see a bit just how much she's loosened up now that she doesn't have to think about a war anymore.
I could care less about a waifu, im talking about storytelling/writing.
@@miiinkusI have to disagree, self sacrifice isn't a character flaw no matter how you look at it. It's the quintessential "too good for this sinful earth" Mary Sue trait. The whole point of her willingness to sacrifice herself was just to show the players what a noble selfless person she is. If it was an actual flaw there would be characters reacting negatively to it, but everyone only ever loves Mavuika in-universe.
@StummerVogel the entire last section of Act V in Ochkanatlan is Citlali+Traveler+Lord of the Night trying to get her not to do it because
1) it’s a bad idea that only gets Natlan another 200-300 years
and
2) Capitano’s proposition to the Lord of the Night was a better plan because he worked WITH someone else (again “No One fights alone”) to find a solution.
no part about that seems like she’s better than anyone. it was everyone learning her final plan all at once and telling her “your plan is dumb, stop now we have to figure out something else.”
@@miiinkus girl im gonna b honest im only reading the first sentences you write
YAPFEST AHEAD PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK
IMO:
Disagreements:
Mavuika's biggest flaw is how flawless she wants herself to be. She knows that she is human so she is willing to sacrifice all the humane characteristics of herself to become the true pyro archon that natlan deserves. Remember how furina had to put on an act as an archon cuz she thought thats's how archons act. Mavuika being human also thinks greatly of archons, perhaps too greatly afterall she didnt see how ei messed up or how zhongli gave up on archonhood or even how nahida had inferiority complex. She only knew war since the beginning of her life and those brave and fearless heroes who sacrificed their life for natlan.
As far as emotional aspects of her go, she clearly cares about everyone but is willing to put on the brave mask cuz she is the archon, like imagine your nation's leader is crying in the middle of a war. What are the common folk even supposed to do? This is made even more clear in her story quest when in the end she turns away and puts on her sunglasses before crying, showing the fact that she is human after all but she doesn't want anyone else to know about it. This is also confirmed when Citlali asks her what she truly wants just as a human and not an archon when she is about to sacrifice her life to lord of the night. She outright says it "It's not important Citlali" showing that she believes that her human self should not interfere with her archon duties, once again trying to be the god that even gods struggle to be.(19:37 yes, if only she knew that gods can be flawed perhaps she could let a few more things slide)
16:49 I dont think she would cry in front of her sister cuz she wouldn't want her sister to be emotional too after all she puts up the front that she always does the right thing. You could say Im looking too deep perhaps but that's exactly me, I have literally cried once in front of someone I just hold the tears back and once I get to my room and lock my door they come rolling down.
20:14 Xblanque looking out for the flame followed by his immediate retreat as soon as it goes out, I think is a pretty good indicator as to the fact that he was just keeping up and that he prolly wouldn't last much longer. Boasting is an interesting word to use here as the warriors all tend to have that playful competitive spirit as in they would probably rub it in if they have defeated you before, but that does not translate to her thinking any less of xblanque so im fine with it.
Agreements:
She should most definitely have had more arguments with capitano as to which plan should have been executed. Or atleast the argument they had should have been more layered and in depth rather than capitano being like "Hmph fine" after asking what the traveller thinks. Honestly tho why does he even care about what the traveller thinks.
Her infalliable nature is another thing i missed in the archon quest. Act 5 was the best place to make her plan fail against goysoythoth. They could have actually killed the traveller and make her regret bringing the traveller in the first place. listening to the voice in the trailer "The value of a descender's life is much more than you imagine" made me think that they were doing that precisely but alas apparently the traveller didnt even die.
The fight against gosoythoth felt like an easy victory (even though the previous bosses were all easy like whale and scaramek this one felt weird maybe cuz its the fking abyss we are talking about or maybe cuz arlecchino just kicked our asses 6 patches ago idk yet), it isnt rocket science that fights are compelling when the tides actually change from one side to another which never happens in this battle, making it feel underwhelming and also making mavuika feel unbeatable.
Complete sidenote:
Capitano actually deserved more screentime and more development to his story and his arc. They really rushed it, if you sit down and think about what he has done, he might just be the most tragic genshin char. Also maybe I like mavuika cuz she is the first competent archon who is also willing to be an archon 😆 and is prolly gonna remain that way cuz I expect tsaritsa to be a char based on cold love, like shes the parent when her 2 yr old kid falls instead on helping them up shes gonna tell them that she wont be there alongside her for the rest of her life so she better get used to getting up on her won cuz no one in this cruel world would help her.
As someone who really enjoyed natlan archon quest up to act 4 and mavuika's personality the act 5 going basically flawlessly with no push back from the abyss and no suspense was an immense disappointment and really brought down the entire experience, and it really exacerbated all of the points you make
Overall despite me liking her and probably being one of my favorite characters I agree entirely with most of the video, and it makes me mad it could've been so much better
yes! the first few acts got me really hyped
Ranking my favourite Archons:
1. Furina (Best written character in the game. She may not be an archon anymore but she’s definitely no. 1)
2. Zhongli (I understand him a lot. Zhongli may not be a good leader, but I feel the tiredness when you live so long, you miss people. His second story quest is one of my favourites in game. BTW love the Osmanthus wine.)
3. Venti (I respect him. Despite being a drunk bard he loves his people and will protect them at all costs. Hope he get the respect he deserves.)
4. Nahida (I like her and respect her. She’s cute and a very kind person. It’s just that I have more understanding on Zhongli and Venti much more than Nahida. Believe me I am happy that she gets a birthday event.)
5. Mavuika (She’s alright. More like a superhero than an Archon.)
6. Raiden (Ironically she’s the only Archon I have. I pulled her without understanding the character and I really regret it. Surely she’s very good in terms of design and gameplay. But Raiden’s story seems very weak. She’s an awful leader but faces no consequences. The she became good all of a sudden.)
Agreed. I think the writers should have delved deeper into her insecurities of her plans. She literally led her friends to their deaths and somehow their sacrifices were gonna save the nation. Instead she had no remorse whatsoever. Her story also built up to her death but they chickened out and chose to kill Capitano.
I pulled for her and even like to use her, but the bike was really out of touch, it's a massive flaw on her playstyle, and I fear for the future of the characters designs; there's no fantasy barrier to stop the Cryo Archon to drive a plane. It would so much better --- and more lore accurate --- if she got into her super sayan state and had pyro infused in her weapon, doing AoE dmg just like witht he bike in a charged attack
Ah hell yeah, my favourite Genshin content creator and me share an opinion!
Mavuika and Rover are the 2 biggest Mary Sue for me in recent memory
I feel Rover was more normal in 2.0 but we will see.
Rover is a glaring flaw in Wuwa’s story, but because they’re a silent protag, they’re mainly inoffensive at best since the rest of the current Wuwa story as of now is fine
What a good critique!! Hopefully someone from Hoyo in charge of story building saw this video and took some of the pointers
Thank you for this!! I was really hoping for more from this character, she was such a sad let down for me too. Flawed characters will always be the best and most relatable types, because nobody is flawless.
As much as I love her and her gameplay, the natlan archon quest and her story just feels so… underwhelming. I loved fontaine and felt attached to so many of it’s characters because of the storyline and this just wasnt the same. As I said, I loved mavuika, visually and gameplay wise but she just feels so underdeveloped. So many characters in genshin have just extremely devastating lore and is rarely explored, unless they are an archon (like furina and nahida). They had the chance to have her story quest to be about this, or maybe even any mention in the archon quest.
Thank you for reading my rant
I like her but her story quest she announced proudly she won against spoiler-
Xbalanque. I didnt find that fair. 1. The flame went out ans xblangue backflipped back. It was a tie neither fell. Yet she proudly accepted him saying she won. Shes a great fighter ahe dosent need to win everything.
Also her suddenly taking up painting and becoming so good after a few weeks to paint that family photo. As if
You cant have any criticism now days though because its all hateful apprently even jf you like the character
She was already good at drawing schematics. Graffiti is also a big part of Natlan's culture so it's not like she's going into it with zero experience.
Citlali's voiceline about her actually mentions that she likes to brag. That's a flaw, right?
@vigor9675 I think the graffiti is a bit diffrent to the painting. Like I'm not great at traditional art (anymore due to illnesses ) but am good at digital art after alot of practice. Just because your good at one artistc thing dosent mean you can be that good enough to do a painting like that when she only is a beginner
"The problem with Mavuika is that she has no flaws and she's a Mary Sue".
You 5 minutes later: "I love Neuvillette and Kazuha"
I love Kazuha, but an archon quest about him in his current form would absolutely be boring. There's a BIG difference between having a character without flaws as a side character - or even better, as an arbiter over the rest of the characters - than as the main protagonist of the story.
@raptori I hate how Kazuha's baxckstory is gated by missable events
i dont think this game is for mature audiences anymore, i think it has doubled down on trying to milk money from less mature audiences and (i dont wanna say it) gooners. its sad to see the story have so much potential though.
It never really was tho, Its a Gatcha game
Yes! There was exploration of philosophical ideas in the previous nations but in Natlan, they only focused on “power of friendship”.
@@mk_gamíng0609 well yes but for a lot of people genshin is an adventerous, beautiful lore heavy game that is pretty inclusive towards all kinds of players due the variety of things that you can do which i believed also resulted in it having more popularity than any other game in its genre (i was always pushed off by other gachas for how non inclusive and low quality they felt - by non inclusive i meant oversaturated and disoriented UI, the hardcore gameplay / niche communities etc) but these days it feels like genshin is becoming more and more like them, the entirety of natlan archon quest felt like a sales advertisement for the characters it had no substance whatsoever, things that were important were rushed to finish off quickly and the things that had no importance where sooo dragged it just made me feel there was actually no story to be told here, just cooking stew to advertise these characters and get the region over with. there was no important lore apart from the sky break thingy which was just a 1 second moment which wasnt mentioned ever again.
@@jet687Boo! it's war they have to unite!
It never was. You just didn't likes Natlan story it's not the end of the world, probably you will like Nord Krai story who knows, also how is genshin a gooner game? Literally everything is so family friendly. How old are you?
I'm so happy someone is finally making a video about this because i have made some of the EXACT same point while debating with some people about why Mauvika is such a flat character.
The fact that she's mortal would have been a very good base to make her an more intresting character since she doesn't have the same advantages as the other archons yet they didn't utilize any of this and made her an unrealisticly perfect character. Even the other archons have flaws yet she doesn't
Ironically she's the only human archon yet all the other archons feel much more human than her💀
no one, literally no one, wherever i see discussion about mavuika, there isn't a single mention of the things she sacrificed. she has no familly, she has no posetions (she burned them all to save everyone from the night kingdom), and she was ready to give her life, all for the nation. what capitano gave to her is the chance to finally have a life. he denied her persuit for absolute self sacrifice, and now mavuika has to rebuild her life. you can see in her story quest how she's slowly opening up more, it's very noticeable how she feels without the massive burden she had.
and about the 500 year time skip, she fused with the eternal flame so she could be on a limbo state for all that time. about her flawless plan, it wasn't her only plan, the gnosis was the final chance, but she knew the consequences of using the gnosis. and besides, her plan wasn't flawless at all. if it weren't for capitano, the abyss would still have a chance to win. mavuika sacrificied everything for a gamble, and if it weren't for external agents (traveler and capitano) it's quite certain natlan's future would still be gloom.
also the bike uses technology from the dragons, it's on her interactions.
The vid mentioned her sister! And pointed to the reason people tend not to mention any of that: Mavuika shows zero emotion about it.
A few people have said that they interpreted that as her bottling up her emotions and being stoic, and if that's how you read her then it'd totally work. For me she just came across as unbothered, so it just didn't feel like she had actually sacrificed anything...
Her story is not the problem it’s players comprehension skills and biases
@@raptoriin her story quest it shows that she really bottles up her emotions so players are not wrong bout her being stoic ! And in my pov she was just plainly happy seeing her sis again , since she knows it’s just the memories of her sister not her actual sister .
@@raptori From her Character Story 5 "Mavuika always imagined her plan to fight against the Abyss as a lengthy journey, and herself as an adventurer carrying a full pack and marching toward her predetermined goal. Memory and love were the supplies she brought, and they would help see her through confusion and solitude. . .
having traveled so far, it was only natural to not wish to show the fatigue or weakness in one's heart, and even she was no exception.
She could easily tell stories about her comrades or family with a smile, but rarely could she speak of the sadness sown in the river of time by those happy moments, nor could she take out her long-emptied haversack, point at it, and speak of how it reflected the current state of her heart. She could not, she would not, and she did not need to."
So yes, she is hiding how she actually feels. You can even see it a bit when Xabblanque is talking to her about her family, she puts on her glasses to hide her eyes. Or when everyone is sharing the fact that they dreamt about their deceased loved ones, she intentionally hides that she also saw Hine.
And the reason no one speaks about these sacrifices she made is because she you never see how much they affect her, like she sacrifices everything and is still willing to put it all on the line every time? Well that's exactly what they mean by Mary Sue, flawless and not very human for a human arcon.
Honestly they could've done so much more with Natlan:
1) The night kingdom could've been incorporated more deeply, where residents of Natlan could've used it for traversal and protecting people from dying. This would've made Natlan feel like SAO, making their computer game-like animations make a lot of sense.
2) Night kingdom could've affected saurians too. They also could've made it so Surians were wild animals, and to form a bond with them Natlanian would've had to go on a pilgrimage. Right now they feel like live stock or domestic animals at best. They could've done something similar to the film Avatar.
3) They could've added more elements of sacrifice. Kachna for example could've lost her memory, it's not death, but all her innerpesonal relationships would've been gone including her firendship with Mualani. This would've been an emotional moment and could've let explore Mualani character better.
4) The whole bulshit with Traveler ancient name could've been simplified. They even threw away a line about ancient name requiring artisans life to craft, which they then forgot about completely. This hook they tried to put up was cheap as hell.
5) They could've justified Mavuika perfectness better by showing that 500 years in limbo dulled all but her goal to save natlan and memories of her sister. They could've given Capitano and Mavuika inter-personal relationships which could've been further explored when Capitano was making his sacrifice. This would've let us explore both Mavuika and Capitano human sides. Maybe Capitano could've been something of an older friend, lover or a father figure. This could've resulted into a dilemma of her not wanting him to sacrifice himself, leaving her broken down as her goal of sacrificing herself for Natlan would've been denied.
6) They should've made nature of natlan more uniform instead of making each area tribe lived in completely disconnected from each other, or they should've made region much bigger for each geographic region to feel like one, instead of like a Trounce domain. Should've also incorporated more elements of night Kingdom into Natlan, this would've made sense as night kingdom is less stable then ley lines and it would've made sense for it to leak into Natlan lore-wise.
There were a lot of possibilities for Natlan, but they ended up doing so little.
I think what they were going for with Mavuika is that she steeled her resolve during the 500 year journey and carried that through to the present. Once she had that conversation in the sacred flame she fully committed to her plan and played her role as the confident leader till the end. In her story quest you can see a more human side of her finally showing through her playful dialogue showing that the whole time she was saying to herself "there's no time for doubts or flaws during war" and that she kept all that bottled up inside her and only showed her confident self because that to her was the only way to achieve victory and honor her friend's memory.
While I understand this though I definitely feel like showing this to the audience during the quest would have been better then showing this confident leader archon to both the characters and the players. Basically she already went through her character arc before we met her
@@LoneFenrir yeah personally that’s what I like about her. In my opinion I was tired of the whole ordeal of going to each nation and having to deal with an archon who we cannot fully engage with, so I kinda appreciated how they set us in the climax of the story with an established archon. I will say though I think what was missing personally wasn’t things from Mauvika but things from the story that were missing due to mauvika being a more tame character than furina lore wise. In Fontaine we spent so much time learning the truth about furina, so I think that’s kinda what was missing. And not necessarily a archon plot twist but a third party to consistently challenge what we think of mauvika. I feel like we got a tiny bit of that through capitano but like I said a tiny bit lol so they should’ve decided to spend more time dropping lore bombs if anything lol
There's multiple videos explaining and showing team comps with or without Natlan characters, or even f2p friendly with Kachina instead of Xilonen and you're only missing out on about 6% damage compared to having Xilonen in the team. Yes Natlan characters are better with her but the same could be said for any other characters that want certain people in the party too.
natlan is just all over the place, gosh i hope that snezhnaya is at least decent because i almost feel like natlan isnt canon
the way that everyone i know ended up being more moved by capitano’s tiny crumbs of personal lore than by mavuika’s entire storyline says…. a lot.
Before I spoil myself with the video because I haven't done the final arc of the quest, yet, I will say that I have to agree. Mavuika feels like a Mary-Sue, and I'm actively looking to interpret character traits as flaws to make her more bearable. I liked her whole aesthetic, and I didn't get baited by the massive marketing ploy because of course I don't have energies to waste on watching much promotional stuff in youtube.
At first, she felt like your good old monarch, that has to maintain an upstanding reputation because of her position. I loved that she had emotional weights from her past, and I was hoping that they explored that further, but it doesn't seem like they will. The more I discover of her character, the more perfect she becomes, and it honestly sucks. So I guess I have to interpret some snippets of her story as Mavuika being quirky and a bit overconfident.
Because at the current level I've built her, she's getting her ass kicked more often than not, lol.