Gotta say, I feel that there was some purpose between these two characters being as opposed to one another as they are: Ruan Mei the superficially nice and demure Harmony character who turns out to be selfish and emotionally immature, trying to elevate herself to the level of a deity at any and all costs vs Ratio the apparent asshole, belligerent and arrogant Hunt character who turns out to be willing to take action to save lives in the background and educate others at no profit to himself simply because that's just the kind of guy he is. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but if it was intended, it's a pretty nice way of introducing the two and making the point that first impressions are not all that there is to a character. I still like both, but while I'd probably have my guard up against Ruan Mei and analyze her every move, Ratio seems like the kind of guy you'd want to be around just to keep you grounded. Guess the asshole wins this one, he'd probably be a hell of a lot less tiring to be around. Hoping for further development for them in 2.0 and beyond.
I don't play HSR anymore but dang the character writing is very contrasting in this game. In genshin, everyone is either good guy or bad guy with "redemption arc" or else they die or never become playable (signora dottore)
Honestly I think it is entirely purposeful especially since it goes beyond that. Ruan Mei claims she isnt distrustful but she wants you to forget about ever meeting her. This is a sharp contrast to every Ratio tweet after this quest. He’s presented as someone who, despite being a genius, is easy to get along with BECAUSE he’s always trying to learn and wants to teach others (something which inevitably means offers the implication that he clearly doesn’t get along much with people on the same intellectual level). The quest is very much about first impressions and seems to do so by effectively giving the Trailblazer character growth.
Genius Society member #55, Yu Qingtu is a galaxy renowned cocktail maker. Yes. Nous chose her to join the Society because she's just THAT good at making drinks. And this is an acknowledgement by a freaking machine god
I feel like a lot of people are missing the difference between hating a character's personality (meaning they were written well enough to elicit such feelings) vs hating a character because people think they were badly written. I think in Ruan Mei's case, it's the former. I feel the same way about Topaz, and to an extent Herta. I dont like their personality/morality/values, but I also don't think it's bad that they're the way they are. The down side, and this is a purely personal take, is that to me, they aren't charming enough for me to love them despite their selfishness.
I feel the same way when comes to tingyun and luocha. So many speculations and I don't know which one is right. Tingyun is death for real or not. Luocha is good or bad guy. The story is kinda mess up.
Thank you! I love Ruan Mei as a character but that doesn't mean I have to like her personality. I've also seen people saying that people who don't like Ruan Mei just dont "get" her. No, I "get" her. I just don't like what she did.
@@madamaonyx8844 ye hahaha I think those people are the ones that don't get it 😂😂 did they mean I should like her for putting the entirety of the space station in danger and having us clean up her mess and not even remember doing so? I'm supposed to like her for that? The fact that she hides it from Herta and Screwllum says enough. She knows she fucked up, and does not want to take responsibility. And I hate her for that. But I totally buy that there would be people who would do exactly that if they could, which makes Ruan Mei's character believable.
Yeah exactly. She is an interesting character, but honestly I'm more indifferent towards her - I didn't find anything that could make me like her. As you said, she lacked the charm to charm me with.
I will forever be mad that we didn't have an option to call her out or at least not be nice to her. We can be rude to Kafka and we're rude to Sampo so why did the writers want us to pretty much simp for Ruan Mei at the end.
Worst part of it all for me? We're gonna forget abt her and whatever she did, ANYWAY. If we WILL forget her anyway, let me be rude to her, at least, on top of allowing her to strip me of my freedom for choice and non-consentual drugging.
I mean... her personality kind of fit, all the "geniuses" are kind of assholes on this game, and she's the one that could actually end up doing horrible things for research purposes, and I like that. Not all characters have to be friendly or nice
@@ahrim_ It mostly has to do with her writing than her being "bad", from what I can tell. There are other morally grey/unempathetic characters in the game that're well-liked such as Herta, but Ruan Mei is highly divisive, especially with how the game forces the player to just go along with it and having no other choice in the matter, even in the end.
@@oceanicGrimalkinthat's kinda the point? Ruan Mei more or less had control over the situation. The Trailblazer was essentially just there to deal with it faster. The Trailblazer can't outwardly antagonize her as she's part of the Genius society alongside making the SU in which the Trailblazer canonically likes. Or even the very least TB respects Madam Herta, and the other people in HSS so they wouldn't want to ruin their friendship with them as they'll 100% keep Ruan Mei on their side because again.. She's a genius society member.
My peblem with her is that she is written like a villain, but the story doesn't treat her that way. Somehow, they manage to go on and on about how terrible she is (for example the logs), but at the same time they pretend like she is our new best buddy like we should be absolutely devastated that she's going to leave and disappear from our memories. It's like two completely different writers were writing the event without communicating with each other and then just mashed the two parts together at the end. No, this doesn't make her "morally gray", it just makes the writing inconsistent and cheap.
That's just your biases taking action, the way you took what was written, Trailblazer probably feels pity for her, seeing how destructive her personality is for others and herself included, basically I feel like the trailblazer wants to fix her, I mean, she's clearly broken, or has 0 social skills.
Unlike sampo or kafka, the "players" are forced to like her. This is one of the weakness in her lore, other than that, she's a very good villain that's pretending to be morally grey.
I love that Ruan Mei is a different take on the Mad Scientist trope. I don't think she's currently a bad person per say but she's focused, selfish, and ruthless. It's gong to be interesting the next time we see her. Is she going to mellow out or be even worse? That's going to tell us if we need to be worried about her as a villain.
Different take how? She does mad scientist shit. She creates life and ignores it if it doesn't satisfy her, drugs people without warning, bribes us in sim uni to prevent Herta from finding out the changes she made, almost gets us killed and wants to become into a fucking Aeon. Bitch is cray cray. Maybe she gets character development later becomes kinda good like with the messages we have with her during the event but now she is a bad person if not downright evil. Mind you just cause she is a bad person doesn't mean you shouldn't pull or use her. My mains are Kafka and SW I'm not gonna deny the shit they do just cause they are allies against the antimatter legion.
What makes someone a "bad person" though? Ruan Mei experiments on sentient beings, such as giving us drugged cake that dorced us to tell lies and included a memory alteration substance all without our consent. Likewise, she creates, discards, and destroys sentient life on a whim with explicit evidence that this causes distress and harm to those beings. On top of all that, she's almost exclusively in isolation. She doesn't publish or share the vast majority of her work (both due to most of it being illegal and fear of discovery by Polka). She even admits that most of these experiments with sentient life is to satisfy her own curiosity or to provoke emotion in her, so its not as if she has some greater moral goal in mind with it all. I don't know about you, but with the possible exception of Dr. Primitive, Ruan Mei seems to be the least moral Genius Society member (and yes I'm including Polka here too).
@Dia_D_Auth bad word choice on my part. Let's say she's not a villain or traditionally evil at this point. If she continues or amplifies her actions, especially if she continues to have little to no remorse, then we might have a larger problem on our hands.
If you think a guy named Dr Primitive is crazy, another member of the Genius Society is a literal spider. Not those monster girl spiders. But an actual spider. Member 29, Sserkal. Though she only lived for 29 days in Human time, she contributed a lot in her short span of life
Gotta love the main focus of the 1.6 continuance quests of Dr. Ratio and Ruan Mei is all about the Geniuses being the worst group of people and I fully agree with Dr. Ratio entire assesment on these geniuses
@@jerryeljeremy7790a literal machine who literally have the similar interest- organic beings But actually have good manners, aint no way, Nous, ik you want to choose people who wants to seek the truth, but not Ruan Mei Polka bit questionable too😭 tho in my memory she kills heretics(?) Of GS
I love her design and her personality to be honest~ She's not outright evil, but more sociopathic. I think her and Dr. Ratio's characters are incredibly interesting. I think morally gray characters are far more fun and interesting than mere black and white characters. Makes stories and twists like these really more captivating.
You should explore the data & computers in the new region. A document clearly states following: 1. Using abundance drugs to prolong (like mara struck) cats, to immortalize them so that they survive experiments. 2. Experiments to turn 'herself' into an Aeon. 3. Experiments to see how much torture the desserts could endure. And so on...
She’s not grey at all. Just because someone in all technicality is neutral doesn’t make them grey. She’s straight up an equivalent to evil. Her actions align with what an evil person would do for the sake of being evil and is too dangerous to be disregarded as grey. Neutrality isn’t about not choosing sides, that is contradictory to being neutral. It’s just a shift from good to bad depending on self interest, she’s selfish, most neutral characters are selfish intents but just because other characters like this are grey doesn’t mean she is. It just so happened her selfishness risked the harm for everyone on the ship, that’s not grey and if she was intended to be a grey character then it’s just uninteresting to try and justify such actions because of a sole technicality of being neutral. When a neutral character causes too much damage, any kind of intent based neutrality can get thrown out the window in my eyes because she has gone too far. She’s a genius but using sociopathy as an excuse for her actions isn’t a cut for something so extreme especially when all it takes is a look at some social norms from even a logical perspective to realise this, so all that’s left is that she’s incompetent and got in her own way. With morally grey characters you’re able to at least defend them in some regard. She has no defendable actions and is just straight up bad. No reason to make a bad guy seems like a better person when that clearly isn’t the case. If a character’s greyness is only based on a mere technicality of neutrality then I think that’s a boring and terribly written “grey” character. Especially when most grey characters that you think of focus on their intent and perceptions of good and evil. Just because she refuses to participate in moral thinking on a logical and is incapable on a feeling level doesn’t make her “grey” as a character. She’s just down right evil due to the extremes of her actions.
@@thederp9309 the purpose of her experiment was not to create harm or chaos in the ship tho, which is what being "evil" is about, the perpetuation of suffering. Her purpose and intention is 100% just research. it doesnt matter how it happens or how she achieves it, just that if its possible in a research setting, she'll end the universe if she could. which is honestly much more interesting than whether a character is good or evil lmao
My theory is that the record Ruan Mei is her true self. After all, she said it herself that she doesn't trust anyone and keeping your emotion is important as to conceal any weaknesses. The nurturing side you see in person or in the letter (trailer) is nothing but a defense mechanism/facade.
At least let TB have an option to call her out. I like her gameplay because she's great as a buffer imo and her design could use some reworking, but her personality is definitely what I'm not into. Being unable to feel empathy to some degree and being morally grey doesn't mean it would turn a complex character a likable one. Some people like her, others don't. Not being able to say no to eating cake (I've been sus about her since her trailer) didn't help. If this is the intention of the writing, then making her unlikable to some people succeeded. Even tho she can return to her creations someday and maybe even feel empathy and care after some time after her quest, the story having the cake cats incredibly miserable from her absence being the majority doesn't exactly inspire some players to like her. I've seen people compare her to Kafka (who also left Trailblazer in the care of other folks and manipulates people both with spirit whisper and just her words), but Kafka's at least more direct with TB in contrast to Ruan Mei. Even writing-wise, Kafka's quest at least lets you just leave and go against "the script" while Ruan Mei's just two options with almost the same result.
I totally agree, and wanna add that I think Kafka Knows she’s doing unethical things. While RM (I’m dyslexic srry) is- I am biased I loved cats and was almost teary when we had to walk through all the sad cake cats. If she’s gunna be a villain I do think that could be cool. Like a beautiful scary smart ass villain could rule, but she’s not for me. Especially when she touched TB without asking. I wanted a Smack Hand Away option, even though I know that was supposed to be charming or something. Violate personal bubble and mean to cats you created? No thank you
@@Dantalliumsolarium Yeah. There are other morally grey/unempathetic characters like Herta, but people like them because of how they're written. I also wish there are options that aren't just leading to the same thing. It's as if the game forces the player to just go along with it and expect everyone to just like her.
@@jsaturn4422 Yeah. And even Herta said ahead that the Genius Society members are likely to milk you dry and trick you into thanking them for it, Herta's just more direct with her methods often- not all the time, but she's blunt frequently.
Making those cute cats miserable cuz of her was def them going HARD on the "hate this character" train, and it worked, she's badly written, boring and uninspiring with no redeeming qualities. Its weird how they can go from Kafka to whatever ruan mei is
What I personally find infuriating is not the way she acts, as there are other characters who behave like assholes. It's the way the Trailblazer reacts (or, rather, doesn't) to her literally drugging them, ommiting truth and then sending on errands without ever even apologising. They don't give us the option to properly call her out, or even refuse her at all. And by the end the relationship between them is friendly...
Honestly I didn't want the cake at all because I found her suspicious, and so I declined at first and then I had to take it which pissed me off a bit and then she made it so that we could only say good things about her, and then we become her assistant but not by choice and then when we're still upset about it she goes I'll just reward you more! with WHAT near death I mean unless you talking to me or whatever is your "reward" I don't want it! But yeah I hate the fact that we had no say in it we couldn't even get angry at her for nearly getting us killed and having us clean up her mess.
Idk why we shit on the TB when you can literally tell that they were super fucking pissed after almost suffering a near death experience from the boss fight and we go over to ruan mei immediately afterwards to demand answers. Like one of the dialogues just basically said to ruan mei that "you didn't have to lie to me" during the questioning. We DID tell her off. We DID basically accepted the fact that we would forget her for what she's done to us. There's really nothing that TB could have done better in that quest. In fact I'd argue that TB was incredibly pissed after the entire situation
keep spamming this but the quest is terribly written. We don't forget immediately after eating the cake. The fact that we could ignore Kafka's and call her out but not ruan mei? a side character in this story? that's what so bad about this. @@juggernaut_naive-sn1zs
I love Dr. Ratio so much he is so hot I got gay panic as I saw his interrogation scene lol. Ruan Mei is an interesting character (although I think she’s a bit overhyped, she is okay) and really underlines Dr. Ratio stance on the Geniuses. She has nothing to lose nothing to gain, only wanting to become an aeon. Her selfishness and morals are a breath of fresh air. I’m really excited for Dr. Ratios Part in Penacony. :)
The second quest is definitely the better quest in this update mainly because the first one doesn’t make sense when you look at it. I hate Ruan Mei as a person, but like her as a character. But why would she give the trailblazer an antidote at all? It doesn’t make any sense. And the Trailblazer just lets her off the hook for no reason after the antidote. It would make sense if she got the trailblazer involved with her after analysing the Trailblazer’s biological make up, realising they’re made of a stellaron which directly links them to Nanook making her very promising for her Aeon experiments. I hope that’s why she involved them in the first place because otherwise there was no reason to get the trailblazer involved. but why give an antidote for talking about her? She could’ve given a false antidote that gets rid of the memory without giving them freedom to speak about her but that’s not what happened. And leads to the part that makes the least sense. The trailblazer just doesn’t say anything. They text each other so nonchalantly as well after it. I really don’t get it and it makes it seem like nearly killing and destroying the space station that holds the simulated universe mean nothing. I feel like she either shouldn’t have given a complete antidote and just only erased the memory over a short time or the quest should’ve had the trailblazer find out by accident without direct employment from Ruan Mei like Dr Ratio did.
She probably did see that though. Additionally, she’s already seen TB’s potential for testing through the Simulated Universe. She’s probably had this planned for a while. Agree on the Trailblazer thing though. I quite liked the quest but the lack of an actual reaction from them felt… off. Kafka’s quest lets you outright skip it out of disdain, but this one doesn’t even let you tell Ruan Mei off for what she did.
We don't really have a choice to respond negatively a lot, tbh. We can't even turn down her cake even though some of us were already sus about her since her trailer.
@@oceanicGrimalkin I wonder why they decided to even make that a choice. They could’ve just made TB jump on it because yummy food, instead of giving us the illusion of choice. HSR is usually great about not doing that, so I wonder why they chose to do it here.
@@captainblue5096 Idk either. If there were a few more branching dialogues, tricking your way around the anti-truth serum by trying to do other things like writing down the truth or something can be clever, I think. At least make it possible for TB to call her out in the end.
I really dislike like we can only lick her boots constantly. That we can't say anything against her. I thought I would like her but these interactions just made me icky. We needed the talking options to be like "what the hell you psycho??" Most of the options just sound like we are crushing on her.
Ruan Mei is interesting as a character. I don't think she fully doesn't care about others, rather it seems like she's very bad at relating to others and/or purposefully keeps others at a distance. The snippets we get of her family life are odd as well. I think when we hear her voice change tone, rather than being out of character, its supposed to be her without a mask on. Like she portrays a calm, detached demeanor in public, but gets excited or dismayed in private during her research. Idk how to feel about it, but to me she seems to be written as neurodivergent, somewhat. I'd like to see more of her, feels like we didn't get enough to get a full picture of what she's really like.
@@justsomeguyworkingatmcdona6817 Eh, moral greyness and terrible personality don't have to be mutually exclusive. She's a divisive character, for sure. She may not be terrible in personality for you, but to others, it is.
She is nicknamed the mad scientist. The genius society aren't exactly saints in their regard. The only sane ones I've seen is herta and screwllum. But people like polka kakamond or Mr. Primitive who has problems of their own
this quest needed a few more drafts for the story. it felt forced and convoluted and could have been more streamlined. didn't like her before and still don't. but she is interesting. she's too curious, wants to create life but doesn't want the responsibility that comes with creating that life. sounds like some of the Aeons already in game. she's on her way! 1:15:37 bro you scared me. i started laughing xDD
I personally like this quest, and I think Ruan Mei was executed pretty well, but I’m not a big fan of how much TB was just going along with it. We have the chance to turn down Kafka completely in her story quest, but here we can’t even tell Ruan Mei off for what she did to us. “I look forward to more adventures with you”? After she drugged you? And forced you to clean her own mess? Only to make you forget it all? I’d be mad, and a lot of others would be mad. If they wanted that line so bad, they’d be better off putting it in a reflection moment or something after the quest. Again, I enjoyed the quest a lot, but Trailblazer’s personality is one of the best parts of the game and I wish they invested more into it here. Would’ve made things feel a lot more real.
Idk why we shit on the TB when you can literally tell that they were super fucking pissed after almost suffering a near death experience from the boss fight and we go over to ruan mei immediately afterwards to demand answers. Like one of the dialogues just basically said to ruan mei that "you didn't have to lie to me" during the questioning. We DID tell her off. We DID basically accepted the fact that we would forget her for what she's done to us. There's really nothing that TB could have done better in that quest. In fact I'd argue that TB was incredibly pissed after the entire situation
Like what the other commentator said, Kafka's more direct to the Trailblazer while Ruan Mei is basically leaving us with 2 vague options with the same end result. We did have the opportunity to call her out. Not sure if you misread the last part of the quest or not, but Trailblazer did in fact, call her out about her "lying" to them. And why wouldn't they do that? Spending the entire time in the space station to do an investigation only to end up in a boss fight that could have almost put the Trailblazer to death there - this is some motive of a morally grey character. They were left after the fight feeling betrayed and pissed off. Me personally, I would be pissed at her for putting me in a situation like this. There was nothing much the Trailblazer could have done here. They were left with no choice to try Ruan Mei's cake, and that "anti-truth serum" basically prevents them from talking anything regarding her. I love her kit and I think she plays a big role in the meta as a break support, unfortunately her personality leaves more to be desired. Let's not forget her abandoning her creations all for the sole purpose of "buying milk" - that's just a hard pill to swallow.
@@juggernaut_naive-sn1zs That’s a fair point. Those lines served their purpose well. I think it was the last few lines that killed it for me, especially the “I look forward to new stories with you” or whatever. Additionally, the messages with her and the Express meetups are very cordial, not how I’d expect someone to react to someone who used them for science experiments waltzing into their own home so-to-speak. You’re right that it’s there though. Didn’t account for that. It’s been a bit since I played the quest so I don’t remember it all clearly atm.
@captainblue5096 To be fair, if TB is cordial to them afterwords, couldnt that be because, as Ruan Mei said, that they forgot about the bad things she did to them once the anti-truth serum wore off?
@@shadowbuddy8034 Oh shoot you’re right. Somehow failed to take that into account. My bad. There’s actually an interaction where TB tells Ruan Mei that they’ve forgotten something about her after the quest so there’s that as proof. So yeah that’s a valid point I overlooked.
This whole quest speaks more about Ruan Mei as a character in terms of her personality as being a sociopath and a morally grey character. On the plus side it allows different personalities of characters to shine in a quest. Not everyone has to be very nice to the main character. It just makes the game feel boring. The comments shit on TB for their actions during the quest, but honestly there's nothing much they could've done here. And more importantly, they did call her out after the entire boss fight happened because they really want answers out of her. Being forced to eat her cake means many other things, it doesn't really lead to the "more sus approach" from the TB's point of view. You may see it as such, but your perspective is very different from the TB, so I think we need to acknowledge that instead of just shitting on the TB for the difference in POV.
Well even if after the boss we indeed call her out, it's very limited A big issue is at the end where we can't chose to idk, be mad about what she did ? We are forced to be act "friendly" toward her in the end message And it's quite annoying
I called Ruan Mei being crazy crazy during that one simuniverse event a while back, long before even her official drip marketing, back when she was just a card in the universe with text. I know a lot of people skipped the little flavor dialogue at the time, it was kinda long blocks of text, but I was curious about her so I read it. It was evident, even then, that she's got this whole paradigm she lives by that does not give even one fractional fuck about anyone else- other lives, peoples' agency, laws, etc. If she thinks it will help her achieve her goals, she'll do it. End of discussion. That's such a stark set of rules to live by, and pretty solidly amoral besides, I'm not shocked that so many people had such a strong reaction to her. Personally, I love that kind of character and she's TOTALLY different from how that kind of character is often portrayed- usually they're men, lack any sense of aesthetic, often times they scorn "the arts" like music, culinary pursuits, etc. Things she does absolutely value... just not as much as the research. Ruan Mei feels like a True Neutral to me that's unerringly motivated to her own goals... which may or may not wind up destroying the universe, and she doesn't care if it does or doesn't. It's not something I would ever condone in real life, we have ethics considerations on science for a reason. But in fiction? It's so much fun to play with. I feel the same about Firefly. I find her behavior abhorrent, and I think we're meant to feel that way. But in her abhorrence, there is so much entertainment value. We love to hate them, and that's the draw. In my opinion, a character with many people who love them and many who hate them is probably a more well designed character than one who most people are vaguely positive but ultimately neutral towards. Bold character traits tend to factionalize people, and in fiction, that conflict is itself a source of interest.
Reason why I didn’t pull for her. No matter the hype about her kit being OP, I didn’t care for her design and much more when I got to know her through this quest.
I don't like her but I find Ratio interesting cause of that cutscene with Screwllum and his leaked voicelines, I wanna see what else they do with his character and Screwllum too.
I'd say Ruan Mei's personality/character is written quite bad. I'm not against evil or morally gray characters (I actually love such characters), but Ruan Mei didn't feel like a real, well-written, and evil or morally gray character to me. She feels like she's just there to exist with her wish to become an Aeon one day and that's it. She doesn't feel like an interesting character.
I’m with you Cyyu. I don’t like her. The way she just abandons the creatures she created. The way she made a monster bug that could have killed people. She is an unethical scientist. As someone who is part of that field irl I absolutely hate that, nothing angers me more lol. Is she an interesting character sure, but that’s not enough for me to like her. Of course tho since this a futuristic sci-fi game, it needs a crazy scientist character. So I get why they created her character this way.
I am for real one of the few people that loved her? I litereally love her charavter design and alike. And some of you need to see that trailblazer is their own chaecater and not a self insert like some gachas, and there is the fact that we sre following a script, and in that script we like ruan mei so it doesn't matter if you guys want to be rude or not nice to her, Trailblazer will be nice to her. And some of you guys comment that we act cordial as everything with the emanator didn't happen, look how fun, ruan mei did say we would forget the evil things she did am i right?
I played HI3 too and I don't think it's appropriate to compare her to all three of these characters. Her story and character are close to Mobius, but still worse written. Let's be honest, a lot of people liked Ruan Mei because she hot (for someone??), not because of her story. In HI3, you can hate Mobius and Otto, but admire how well they are written and respect that.
I've never played the previous Hoyo games, but I guess something similar to Bondrewd (also a complicated scientist character) from Made in Abyss in terms of immoral actions?
@@_natalie_723Actually it’s very appropriate to compare her to them; it’s Honkai. I’d also compare her to Dr. Mei on a lesser sense as there are slight similarities in terms of personality; imo she’s more a mixture of Mobius & Dr. Mei. General personality of Dr. Mei and mad scientist aspect from Mobius as, if you read through the files in the Secluded Zone, you can see the amount of fucked up shit she’s done to test subjects.
When I first played this I had to take a good few minutes to attempt to process what the f*ck happened in this quest beyond the big bug psudo-emanator attacking me, but that genuinely didn't help me at all and I thought "maybe I'm overreacting and it wasn't as pointless and stupid as you think it is." because surely the writing couldn't be THAT bad, right? Nah, I was absolutely right first time around, this quest is a bunch of incomprehensible nonsense that jumps between awful tangents and basically amounted to nothing in the end just for the sake of adding another boss to the game and to give the Ruan mei simps material to simp over. Ruan mei herself is a TERRIBLY boring character and is pretty much just a terrible person (if you could even call someone who acts so inhuman a "person" to begin with..) who has no moral qualms about endangering copious amounts of people because she's curious 😐 She speaks a bunch of flowery nonsense that could very easily be cut down to probably a third of the length it is, she's a completely amoral and awful "person," she drugged us and we just.. didn't do anything about it??? And then the trailblazer just acts like they're chummy at the end and takes care of her stupid creations that she abandoned????? Like, what the hell is all this 💀 And yes, her design is also boring as hell.. they had something cooking when she was mysterious and had her eyes closed in the light cone and from her SU artwork, but they took her out of the oven WAY too early and made her look SO bland and uninspired with practically nothing about her standing out other than her playing an instrument I guess (even though Serval already did something similar)? One of the biggest L's Star rail has taken tbh, she just sucks regardless of how braindead broken her gameplay is.
I am not against characters who are grey or evil/mad scientists, but Ruan Mei is just uninteresting and boring to me. I like Dottore, Otto and Dr.Ratio and such they are interesting to watch and listen to, even if I don't support them.
At least I know I wasn't alone in hating her character. I haven't been following Star Rail as much as I used to, and am now behind on the main questline. But even without that context, I still actively disliked her character through the entirety of her story. Almost made me regret pulling her.
For me, it’s basically “you are on this team because you are useful, not because I like you. The second that stops being the case, you’re out.” At least with the others in my team, I actually like them
You know, i have * almost* regretted pulling for Luocha, but the way his personality is taken, and by how he cares (probably a ruse, but im coping) im still holding the rope of hoping hes not evil
Her being a badly written boring villain isn't even the main problem, my problem is that as the player we're given 0 choice if we wanna help or not, we just meet this random boring lady and we start doing shit for her
Wait, where did you find out some of her creations killed themselves? I honestly can't remember if I discovered that or missed it 🤔 Either way, I'll adopt all of those adorable little kitty-cakes!
@@sairi_aFrom her logs. It also makes me feel bad reading about the kitty cakes. She wants to seal them in the seclusion zone after realising they’re failed experiments. The fact that she labels it as subject disposal is depressing to say the least.
The anti-truth serum made me wonder if TB can trick his way around it by trying to *write the truth* or something close to it. It'd make for more interesting dialogues as well as calling her out.
@@oceanicGrimalkin Well, my point is that TB is not a self-insert character. You can feel however you want, but the TB's character is written in a certain way and that includes liking Ruan Mei.
@@Himomo3 Then making choices for the game is moot then. TB is their own character, but just like Harry Du Bois from Disco Elysium, it's us who chooses what happens and the MC is mostly silent.
She wasn't even written to be a compelling gray character, like those in BG3. She just made me incredibly pissed to the point I decided skip on pulling for her once I finally got Blade. I will eventually pull for everyone but, yeah, she's not a priority yet, despite her good buffing.
Same here, the two main points that really brings her down is her potentially harming Trailblazer from the troubles that she herself created, and the lifeforms that she failed to take responsibility for creating them. P.S: Do you love the critters? I do, a lot. XD
I wanted to say she is sweet but psycho but she is not even sweet.she lkes sweet things but she literally drugged us.she is like a selfish person who lets her curiosity get better of her😅
Rolled for her and at a early 30 pity(had exactly 30 tickets) I won the 50/50 first day of her banner(Got Argenti few weeks ago and won the 50/50 that time as well!) But I’m still mad at her. Yeah I get that she wants to learn more about creature life but a Emanator that spawns bugs when you attack it(2 in second phase with Explosive Bugs thrown in the mix) that’s BS. I’ve finished levels, traces, and relics for Ruan Mei… But since we’re getting a free dr. ratio Imma have to do the bug boss again.
I'm really surprised I haven't seen anybody compare her to Dottore from Genshin yet. They're quite similar people, yet Dottore was never called "morally grey" 💀
The main difference between them is that Dottore is someone who specifically is willing and eager to step over the corpses of whoever he needs to kill in order to achieve results in his experiments, while Ruan mei isn't going out of her way to try and harm people in the process of experimenting its that she literally doesn't care about consequences and potential dangers which is a different kind of detached fucked up mindset 😐
@@Ivy-jq6di oh don't worry, I'm not trying to justify her being morally gray, I despise her and she's definitely just a bad person similarly to dottore who I also hate🗿
I like that her kit is the only thing carried her banner. I kinda regret pulling for her lol. I'm still unimpressed with her Xianzhou girls design syndrome
Perhaps not that true Even tho I find her design really boring because.. litteraly female Dan Heng Lot of people like it and simp for her because.. Well attractive female, what can we say I think even if she wasn't broken, lot of people still would have pulled because of simping
@@lazaruslong697 "Herta: This is Madam Herta, or better known as member 83 of the Genius Society. In her childhood, she solved the solitary waves theory and the Spark model hypothesis. In her adolescence, she found the Sigma Baryons conversion method. In middle-age, she proposed the Herta sequence and published a paper on de-aging. Herta: In her senior years, she managed to reverse her own age via de-aging, and went on to solve the mystery of the imaginary leakage phenomenon, and even captured and sealed a stellaron. Madam Herta has saved the planet she was on from destruction 19 times and has met the Aeons twice." Her true appearance might be similar to Nahida considering her personality. She reminds me of Purah from Breath of the Wild cuz she also reversed her aging. It's up to the devs to decide what appearance to go by.
Idk I feel like Ruan Mei’s personality wasn’t displayed well in this quest The vibe I’ve gotten from her is like a detached mother that has expectations of her “children” and I think that would be very interesting to see in her goal to be a god But I only really understood that near the end of her quest and from the texts shared during the cat event Idk tell me if I’m off
I'm gonna go against the popular opinion and say, I like that we have characters that aren't friendly and are supposed to be hated by the audience. It's better than having everyone be friendly toward the Trailblazer. That's probably weird to say and I might get jumped in the comments for that but for me personally, having characters in this world that aren't always friendly is great. I do agree the Trailblazer should have an option to respond negatively to Ruan Mei, but other than that I'm interested. I'm very much looking forward to what Hoyo will do with these characters later. And lowkey, Ruan Mei reminds me of Ichinose from Persona 5 Strikers and Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time. Edit: In case anyone might think this in the future; this isn't to crap on anyone who doesn't like Ruan Mei. You can hate her guts and that's perfectly fine. Personally, I just think she's interesting and a little different from the characters we met so far (newer characters), but I don't care much for her personality.
@@darsath84 I literally say in my own comment that I agree that the Trailblazer needs to have an option of us responding negatively to her. If not be negative towards her in all the options.
@@misslethal2355 And that is exactly what I didn't like, as I said in my own comment. I said I don't agree that there is no option to respond negatively to her.
Of course it's great to have bad person and not just friendly one And TBH, most people think like you Of course lot of people dislike Ruan Mei because she is made to be unlikable but interesting But like you say, the real thing people complain about and the real thing people really don't like about this quest It's just how she get out free of any consequences, just a friendly puppy trailblazers who simp for her Sure there are some people that would complain about her being an anwful person because they want only friendly and cool characters But if they just made so that we could really be angry at her and make her think of her action and not just "you didn't have to lie to me :(" I think there would be so much less complaint and hate
I honestly think she is not outright evil but not good. And fighting the bug king was so hard I just now beaten it and the second act part just needed right team but I finished it. The only thing I am stuck on the companion quest for Argenti
Yeah She's an awful person but she can't be said to be evil Evil means wanting to harm, hurt and destroy. And most of the time taking pleasure into that While she doesn't want to harm people, it's just that she takes actions without caring if it causes harm or not
she’s a sociopath and I love that about her, but what I hate is how there’s not really any accountability for her actions and that TB just acts like a puppy throughout the quest and likes her no matter what dialogue you say/choose
I actually love her, she's so unassuming, yet so ruthless, not a malicious kind of evil, but one born out of carelessness and selfishness. Her character stories also show that she was already like this as a child, with small glimpses and blips hinting at deeper emotions deep beneath the surface, she recognizes there's a hollowness inside of her she wants to push through but, well, she doesn't have the emotional tools to do it. I wonder how she will evolve, will she manage to open to others' needs and see the worlds and life around her, through real bonds with her creations, the TB or Herta, or will she double down onto the lonely road towards godhood, hermetic to any plea that isn't hers? Does she believe becoming a God will finally fill that void inside her, and let her explore the entire spectrum of human emotions, drives, and ultimately the purpose of life? Does she believe it is what it should come down to, for her to be able to feel and see ? Will her hubris be punished, and her own control be ripped out of her, putting her through that vulnerability she put her creations and the TB through? a quietly interesting character to me, offsetting the more "explosive" lore-heavy characters Hoyo releases.
1:32:37 I don't think its out of character because shes alone. Ruan Mei always talks about concealing her emotions, but she doesn't need to when she's alone. Also, the person who pointed out she was getting excited wasn't just stating the obvious, they were giving a reason why her voice was higher pitched. I agree with most of what you have to say about Ruan Mei, but it does feel like you're reaching in a few places and being influenced by your preconceived bias. On another note, Dr. Ratio is LEAGUES better than Ruan Mei, he makes me smile and laugh whenever I see or hear him!
26:25 story quest continues I don't like Ruan Mei as much (her introduction line was so pretentious lmao) as I thought I would, but she is an interesting character. Kinda reminds me of Albedo when you first meet him, so maybe she'll warm up more over time (or maybe she'll be like rhinedottir) 34:00 lol captain underpants what nostalgia
I thought they wrote her character really well. She is definitely complex and compelling, in my opinion. I just have a major major soft spot for animals, so I do have dislike for her simply for that reason.
the thing about ruan mei is that she doesn't do what she is incapable of... she's unable to feel the extent of empathy that is desired from her, and so she won't pretend. she's not entirely unkind, merely unapologetic. she's sincere in that regard. That being said, can even geniuses tell the difference? l annot, at least... I do not understand what "love" is and cannot respond to their feelings. she asks you to consider a genuine question: is it wrong of her to not put forward something false, a mere mimicry of sentiment and love? to wish to live her life untethered and truthfully, rather than an ignorant lie?
My issue was not her personality, but the way the Trailblazer reacted to her actions. They just got drugged and then went along with whatever she wanted them to do... Really? They already gave us the opportunity to turn down Kafka, so why not do something similar here. Or just give us the opportunity to be rude or show any appropriately negative reaction at all. This was infuriating
@@Relevart9169Especially when it’s also one that is just allowed to get away Scott free with no repercussions. At that point it’s as though Mihoyo is putting her on a pedestal in spite of amoral actions
@@_dragonflies_the turning down Kafka is companion quest tho, I mean sure they can turn down Ruan Mei but that just ends the entire main story which well imo I don’t mind if they implement that
@@Omnislash7what repercussion do u want tho? Get arrested? TB being angry at her? Need to be more specific.. if it’s TB part ok I get it, getting arrested er I don’t think u can achieve that she’s not tied to any region (she left xianzhou). Herta literally don’t care what she does so even if u report to her it’s useless and this is her space station so she’s the boss (wtv Ruan Mei action is in this story the bugs)
This is my first time seeing anyone play this ruan mei event and I’m surprised like 90% of these comments are people that hate her, I really liked her lmao I guess the consensus is that people hate her personality, but I thought that was what made her interesting, it’s nice to have a female character thats not either another small cute girl, or a dommy mommy archetype. Even if she turns out to be evil, I’m happy to have the variety tbh. For some reason it always seems like a lot of people are far more accepting of others liking morally grey or evil characters if they are male rather than female. Its like one gets to be a bad boy but the other is just a soulless bitch
Genuinely considering not taking the free Dr Ratio, I really cannot stomach his personality and he'd stay at lvl 1 and never used. Ruan Mei... I love morally grey characters and i found her interesting, not interesting enough to pull, but i genuinely preferred her half of the TBC vs Ratios. Thats just me.
Oh yeah. Guy like him exist even in real life. He is eccentric guy. The funny part is Screwllum having debate with Dr Ratio. Just reminds me with Silver Wolf. 😂
@@ZephyrBluePaddy It’s literally free. There is no detriment to having him. Heck if you level him a little you get standard passes for free. If you end up liking his character later you already have him, he’s super strong, and he is an imaginary dps which is only fulfilled by Daniel.
why cant ppl tolerate chars with an evil personality it makes them so much more unique and better. shes so well written, hating on her means shes just that good. why do all chars have to be so kind and happy
No. Not at all you are missing the point. It's different for example hating a character from a story standpoint that is actually sought after because they want to create a divisive opinion with this "grey" character. That hating them from a writing standpoint. I hate her because the writters forced the TB to not be able to shit on her like we can do to Kafka, sampo, etc. Instead we get a dormant TB? Totally out of character and the worst is that we keep talking with her like nothing happened after. That's what I hate of her. Forcing things is not the answer to create inmersion and that she gets scott free.
@@benjamin-pj1of oh i assumed ppl hated her because of her apathetic nature and not caring about who or what she experiments on. i actually also agree on that too, i didnt like how the MC was only upset for like 2 seconds and then forgave her immeditatly and forgot abt what happened
@@a.bygoner Yeah there is some people that don't like her becouse of he attitude which is also understandable because that's what she's is supossed to do, make you have a divisive opinion. But honestly from the comments the most frecuent opinion is the one we both have. That the TB should not have been ok with her. All we can do is complain about it in the survey so this never happens again, I dont even know how this can happen if the TB is supossed to be sort of a vessel to the players. All in all I hope you have a good day night or whathever!
Gotta say, I feel that there was some purpose between these two characters being as opposed to one another as they are: Ruan Mei the superficially nice and demure Harmony character who turns out to be selfish and emotionally immature, trying to elevate herself to the level of a deity at any and all costs vs Ratio the apparent asshole, belligerent and arrogant Hunt character who turns out to be willing to take action to save lives in the background and educate others at no profit to himself simply because that's just the kind of guy he is.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but if it was intended, it's a pretty nice way of introducing the two and making the point that first impressions are not all that there is to a character. I still like both, but while I'd probably have my guard up against Ruan Mei and analyze her every move, Ratio seems like the kind of guy you'd want to be around just to keep you grounded. Guess the asshole wins this one, he'd probably be a hell of a lot less tiring to be around. Hoping for further development for them in 2.0 and beyond.
That's a good way of looking at it! Glad we're getting free Ratio
I don't play HSR anymore but dang the character writing is very contrasting in this game. In genshin, everyone is either good guy or bad guy with "redemption arc" or else they die or never become playable (signora dottore)
Honestly I think it is entirely purposeful especially since it goes beyond that. Ruan Mei claims she isnt distrustful but she wants you to forget about ever meeting her. This is a sharp contrast to every Ratio tweet after this quest. He’s presented as someone who, despite being a genius, is easy to get along with BECAUSE he’s always trying to learn and wants to teach others (something which inevitably means offers the implication that he clearly doesn’t get along much with people on the same intellectual level). The quest is very much about first impressions and seems to do so by effectively giving the Trailblazer character growth.
Genius Society member #55, Yu Qingtu is a galaxy renowned cocktail maker.
Yes.
Nous chose her to join the Society because she's just THAT good at making drinks. And this is an acknowledgement by a freaking machine god
Diona in HSR ?!
@@NightmarAkashi Literally though, what if she's a Foxian so she's also a 'cat' person? XDDD
I feel like a lot of people are missing the difference between hating a character's personality (meaning they were written well enough to elicit such feelings) vs hating a character because people think they were badly written. I think in Ruan Mei's case, it's the former. I feel the same way about Topaz, and to an extent Herta. I dont like their personality/morality/values, but I also don't think it's bad that they're the way they are. The down side, and this is a purely personal take, is that to me, they aren't charming enough for me to love them despite their selfishness.
Yep exactly
I feel the same way when comes to tingyun and luocha. So many speculations and I don't know which one is right. Tingyun is death for real or not. Luocha is good or bad guy. The story is kinda mess up.
Thank you! I love Ruan Mei as a character but that doesn't mean I have to like her personality. I've also seen people saying that people who don't like Ruan Mei just dont "get" her. No, I "get" her. I just don't like what she did.
@@madamaonyx8844 ye hahaha I think those people are the ones that don't get it 😂😂 did they mean I should like her for putting the entirety of the space station in danger and having us clean up her mess and not even remember doing so? I'm supposed to like her for that? The fact that she hides it from Herta and Screwllum says enough. She knows she fucked up, and does not want to take responsibility. And I hate her for that. But I totally buy that there would be people who would do exactly that if they could, which makes Ruan Mei's character believable.
Yeah exactly. She is an interesting character, but honestly I'm more indifferent towards her - I didn't find anything that could make me like her. As you said, she lacked the charm to charm me with.
It feels like Screwlllum is the only somewhat sane member of the Genius Society
Yep
Screwllum 🔛🔝
Screwllum radiates the "i gotchu homie" vibe whenever we got caught up in these geniuses schemes.
i love him sm honestly.
I will forever be mad that we didn't have an option to call her out or at least not be nice to her. We can be rude to Kafka and we're rude to Sampo so why did the writers want us to pretty much simp for Ruan Mei at the end.
Yeah, it's what made me hate her even more
Worst part of it all for me? We're gonna forget abt her and whatever she did, ANYWAY. If we WILL forget her anyway, let me be rude to her, at least, on top of allowing her to strip me of my freedom for choice and non-consentual drugging.
I mean... her personality kind of fit, all the "geniuses" are kind of assholes on this game, and she's the one that could actually end up doing horrible things for research purposes, and I like that. Not all characters have to be friendly or nice
Big this. Lot of people going 'oh, she is just evil', and I am like.... is that a bad thing?
@@ahrim_ It mostly has to do with her writing than her being "bad", from what I can tell. There are other morally grey/unempathetic characters in the game that're well-liked such as Herta, but Ruan Mei is highly divisive, especially with how the game forces the player to just go along with it and having no other choice in the matter, even in the end.
she's not interesting thats about it, theres nothing about her that makes u wanna know more
@@Relevart9169sounds like a you problem, as I personally have lots of things I want to know of her more, just as much with Screwllum and Herta!
@@oceanicGrimalkinthat's kinda the point? Ruan Mei more or less had control over the situation. The Trailblazer was essentially just there to deal with it faster. The Trailblazer can't outwardly antagonize her as she's part of the Genius society alongside making the SU in which the Trailblazer canonically likes. Or even the very least TB respects Madam Herta, and the other people in HSS so they wouldn't want to ruin their friendship with them as they'll 100% keep Ruan Mei on their side because again.. She's a genius society member.
My peblem with her is that she is written like a villain, but the story doesn't treat her that way. Somehow, they manage to go on and on about how terrible she is (for example the logs), but at the same time they pretend like she is our new best buddy like we should be absolutely devastated that she's going to leave and disappear from our memories. It's like two completely different writers were writing the event without communicating with each other and then just mashed the two parts together at the end. No, this doesn't make her "morally gray", it just makes the writing inconsistent and cheap.
That's just your biases taking action, the way you took what was written, Trailblazer probably feels pity for her, seeing how destructive her personality is for others and herself included, basically I feel like the trailblazer wants to fix her, I mean, she's clearly broken, or has 0 social skills.
Unlike sampo or kafka, the "players" are forced to like her. This is one of the weakness in her lore, other than that, she's a very good villain that's pretending to be morally grey.
1:27:52 "Blade is not a healer"
Um actually he heals my daddy issues, so there's that.
Nah he only deepens the daddy issues
I love that Ruan Mei is a different take on the Mad Scientist trope. I don't think she's currently a bad person per say but she's focused, selfish, and ruthless.
It's gong to be interesting the next time we see her. Is she going to mellow out or be even worse? That's going to tell us if we need to be worried about her as a villain.
Exactly someone gets it
Different take how? She does mad scientist shit. She creates life and ignores it if it doesn't satisfy her, drugs people without warning, bribes us in sim uni to prevent Herta from finding out the changes she made, almost gets us killed and wants to become into a fucking Aeon. Bitch is cray cray. Maybe she gets character development later becomes kinda good like with the messages we have with her during the event but now she is a bad person if not downright evil. Mind you just cause she is a bad person doesn't mean you shouldn't pull or use her. My mains are Kafka and SW I'm not gonna deny the shit they do just cause they are allies against the antimatter legion.
What makes someone a "bad person" though?
Ruan Mei experiments on sentient beings, such as giving us drugged cake that dorced us to tell lies and included a memory alteration substance all without our consent.
Likewise, she creates, discards, and destroys sentient life on a whim with explicit evidence that this causes distress and harm to those beings.
On top of all that, she's almost exclusively in isolation. She doesn't publish or share the vast majority of her work (both due to most of it being illegal and fear of discovery by Polka). She even admits that most of these experiments with sentient life is to satisfy her own curiosity or to provoke emotion in her, so its not as if she has some greater moral goal in mind with it all.
I don't know about you, but with the possible exception of Dr. Primitive, Ruan Mei seems to be the least moral Genius Society member (and yes I'm including Polka here too).
How is she not a bad person when everything she does is bad
@Dia_D_Auth bad word choice on my part. Let's say she's not a villain or traditionally evil at this point.
If she continues or amplifies her actions, especially if she continues to have little to no remorse, then we might have a larger problem on our hands.
I absolutely love that our first introduction to Dr. L+Ratio is just “Geri’s Game”😂😂😂
Right?! Love the pop culture references HSR keeps doing, but Geri's Game takes the cake
If you think a guy named Dr Primitive is crazy, another member of the Genius Society is a literal spider. Not those monster girl spiders. But an actual spider.
Member 29, Sserkal. Though she only lived for 29 days in Human time, she contributed a lot in her short span of life
Gotta love the main focus of the 1.6 continuance quests of Dr. Ratio and Ruan Mei is all about the Geniuses being the worst group of people and I fully agree with Dr. Ratio entire assesment on these geniuses
Ironically screwllum is the most sane one
@@jerryeljeremy7790Yep Stephen Lloyd too, the kid is amazing yet introverted LMaoo
@@jerryeljeremy7790a literal machine who literally have the similar interest- organic beings
But actually have good manners, aint no way, Nous, ik you want to choose people who wants to seek the truth, but not Ruan Mei
Polka bit questionable too😭 tho in my memory she kills heretics(?) Of GS
@@idontspeakjapanese6289yeah but … he’s literally a kid who still lives with his parents.
Yea, no. So far the Genuis Society is a lot more likable compared to Ratio who just comes across as a know-it-all.
1:32:56 I totally agree, in CN and JP she's completely calm and analytic in this scene. Idk why EN made her sound this excited.
I love her design and her personality to be honest~
She's not outright evil, but more sociopathic. I think her and Dr. Ratio's characters are incredibly interesting.
I think morally gray characters are far more fun and interesting than mere black and white characters. Makes stories and twists like these really more captivating.
She's just morally black
Same she reminds me of princess bubblegum from adventure time minus the mental breakdowns and more brutal abusive methods in experiments.
You should explore the data & computers in the new region.
A document clearly states following:
1. Using abundance drugs to prolong (like mara struck) cats, to immortalize them so that they survive experiments.
2. Experiments to turn 'herself' into an Aeon.
3. Experiments to see how much torture the desserts could endure.
And so on...
She’s not grey at all. Just because someone in all technicality is neutral doesn’t make them grey. She’s straight up an equivalent to evil. Her actions align with what an evil person would do for the sake of being evil and is too dangerous to be disregarded as grey. Neutrality isn’t about not choosing sides, that is contradictory to being neutral. It’s just a shift from good to bad depending on self interest, she’s selfish, most neutral characters are selfish intents but just because other characters like this are grey doesn’t mean she is.
It just so happened her selfishness risked the harm for everyone on the ship, that’s not grey and if she was intended to be a grey character then it’s just uninteresting to try and justify such actions because of a sole technicality of being neutral. When a neutral character causes too much damage, any kind of intent based neutrality can get thrown out the window in my eyes because she has gone too far.
She’s a genius but using sociopathy as an excuse for her actions isn’t a cut for something so extreme especially when all it takes is a look at some social norms from even a logical perspective to realise this, so all that’s left is that she’s incompetent and got in her own way.
With morally grey characters you’re able to at least defend them in some regard. She has no defendable actions and is just straight up bad. No reason to make a bad guy seems like a better person when that clearly isn’t the case.
If a character’s greyness is only based on a mere technicality of neutrality then I think that’s a boring and terribly written “grey” character. Especially when most grey characters that you think of focus on their intent and perceptions of good and evil. Just because she refuses to participate in moral thinking on a logical and is incapable on a feeling level doesn’t make her “grey” as a character. She’s just down right evil due to the extremes of her actions.
@@thederp9309 the purpose of her experiment was not to create harm or chaos in the ship tho, which is what being "evil" is about, the perpetuation of suffering. Her purpose and intention is 100% just research. it doesnt matter how it happens or how she achieves it, just that if its possible in a research setting, she'll end the universe if she could. which is honestly much more interesting than whether a character is good or evil lmao
My theory is that the record Ruan Mei is her true self.
After all, she said it herself that she doesn't trust anyone and keeping your emotion is important as to conceal any weaknesses. The nurturing side you see in person or in the letter (trailer) is nothing but a defense mechanism/facade.
At least let TB have an option to call her out. I like her gameplay because she's great as a buffer imo and her design could use some reworking, but her personality is definitely what I'm not into. Being unable to feel empathy to some degree and being morally grey doesn't mean it would turn a complex character a likable one. Some people like her, others don't. Not being able to say no to eating cake (I've been sus about her since her trailer) didn't help. If this is the intention of the writing, then making her unlikable to some people succeeded. Even tho she can return to her creations someday and maybe even feel empathy and care after some time after her quest, the story having the cake cats incredibly miserable from her absence being the majority doesn't exactly inspire some players to like her.
I've seen people compare her to Kafka (who also left Trailblazer in the care of other folks and manipulates people both with spirit whisper and just her words), but Kafka's at least more direct with TB in contrast to Ruan Mei. Even writing-wise, Kafka's quest at least lets you just leave and go against "the script" while Ruan Mei's just two options with almost the same result.
I totally agree, and wanna add that I think Kafka Knows she’s doing unethical things. While RM (I’m dyslexic srry) is- I am biased I loved cats and was almost teary when we had to walk through all the sad cake cats. If she’s gunna be a villain I do think that could be cool. Like a beautiful scary smart ass villain could rule, but she’s not for me. Especially when she touched TB without asking. I wanted a Smack Hand Away option, even though I know that was supposed to be charming or something. Violate personal bubble and mean to cats you created? No thank you
@@Dantalliumsolarium Yeah. There are other morally grey/unempathetic characters like Herta, but people like them because of how they're written. I also wish there are options that aren't just leading to the same thing. It's as if the game forces the player to just go along with it and expect everyone to just like her.
I agree, tho with kafka the story and charas r fully aware shes an insane war criminal and treat her as such
@@jsaturn4422 Yeah. And even Herta said ahead that the Genius Society members are likely to milk you dry and trick you into thanking them for it, Herta's just more direct with her methods often- not all the time, but she's blunt frequently.
Making those cute cats miserable cuz of her was def them going HARD on the "hate this character" train, and it worked, she's badly written, boring and uninspiring with no redeeming qualities. Its weird how they can go from Kafka to whatever ruan mei is
I really liked the atmosphere of this quest, I actually got a few good jumpscares from the bugs
What I personally find infuriating is not the way she acts, as there are other characters who behave like assholes. It's the way the Trailblazer reacts (or, rather, doesn't) to her literally drugging them, ommiting truth and then sending on errands without ever even apologising. They don't give us the option to properly call her out, or even refuse her at all. And by the end the relationship between them is friendly...
To be fair the drug does make the Trailblazer forget about what happens
@@jarrodtan5712 not right away though. It only makes them forget after some time passed, not immediately
Honestly I didn't want the cake at all because I found her suspicious, and so I declined at first and then I had to take it which pissed me off a bit and then she made it so that we could only say good things about her, and then we become her assistant but not by choice and then when we're still upset about it she goes I'll just reward you more! with WHAT near death I mean unless you talking to me or whatever is your "reward" I don't want it! But yeah I hate the fact that we had no say in it we couldn't even get angry at her for nearly getting us killed and having us clean up her mess.
Idk why we shit on the TB when you can literally tell that they were super fucking pissed after almost suffering a near death experience from the boss fight and we go over to ruan mei immediately afterwards to demand answers. Like one of the dialogues just basically said to ruan mei that "you didn't have to lie to me" during the questioning. We DID tell her off. We DID basically accepted the fact that we would forget her for what she's done to us. There's really nothing that TB could have done better in that quest. In fact I'd argue that TB was incredibly pissed after the entire situation
keep spamming this but the quest is terribly written. We don't forget immediately after eating the cake. The fact that we could ignore Kafka's and call her out but not ruan mei? a side character in this story? that's what so bad about this. @@juggernaut_naive-sn1zs
I love Dr. Ratio so much he is so hot I got gay panic as I saw his interrogation scene lol. Ruan Mei is an interesting character (although I think she’s a bit overhyped, she is okay) and really underlines Dr. Ratio stance on the Geniuses. She has nothing to lose nothing to gain, only wanting to become an aeon. Her selfishness and morals are a breath of fresh air. I’m really excited for Dr. Ratios Part in Penacony. :)
Ruan mei: can you take care of my creations?
Also ruan mei: oh btw you're gonna forget me, which means you'll probably forget my creations. Oh well.
The second quest is definitely the better quest in this update mainly because the first one doesn’t make sense when you look at it.
I hate Ruan Mei as a person, but like her as a character. But why would she give the trailblazer an antidote at all? It doesn’t make any sense. And the Trailblazer just lets her off the hook for no reason after the antidote.
It would make sense if she got the trailblazer involved with her after analysing the Trailblazer’s biological make up, realising they’re made of a stellaron which directly links them to Nanook making her very promising for her Aeon experiments. I hope that’s why she involved them in the first place because otherwise there was no reason to get the trailblazer involved. but why give an antidote for talking about her? She could’ve given a false antidote that gets rid of the memory without giving them freedom to speak about her but that’s not what happened.
And leads to the part that makes the least sense. The trailblazer just doesn’t say anything. They text each other so nonchalantly as well after it. I really don’t get it and it makes it seem like nearly killing and destroying the space station that holds the simulated universe mean nothing.
I feel like she either shouldn’t have given a complete antidote and just only erased the memory over a short time or the quest should’ve had the trailblazer find out by accident without direct employment from Ruan Mei like Dr Ratio did.
There wasnt an antidote, she said that "it will just wear off" in the end.
She probably did see that though. Additionally, she’s already seen TB’s potential for testing through the Simulated Universe. She’s probably had this planned for a while.
Agree on the Trailblazer thing though. I quite liked the quest but the lack of an actual reaction from them felt… off. Kafka’s quest lets you outright skip it out of disdain, but this one doesn’t even let you tell Ruan Mei off for what she did.
We don't really have a choice to respond negatively a lot, tbh. We can't even turn down her cake even though some of us were already sus about her since her trailer.
@@oceanicGrimalkin I wonder why they decided to even make that a choice. They could’ve just made TB jump on it because yummy food, instead of giving us the illusion of choice.
HSR is usually great about not doing that, so I wonder why they chose to do it here.
@@captainblue5096 Idk either. If there were a few more branching dialogues, tricking your way around the anti-truth serum by trying to do other things like writing down the truth or something can be clever, I think. At least make it possible for TB to call her out in the end.
I really dislike like we can only lick her boots constantly. That we can't say anything against her. I thought I would like her but these interactions just made me icky. We needed the talking options to be like "what the hell you psycho??"
Most of the options just sound like we are crushing on her.
I don't want to be forced to simp a character x.x
@@materla4102same and boy do i have news for you in penacony regarding being forced to simp for a chara
@@armslitter oh man, who are we going to be forced to simp for now?
@@materla4102 Firefly (she was introduced by sunday in the live stream) She also pilots Sam ..
@@armslitter I see, I'm not up to speed still
Ruan Mei is interesting as a character. I don't think she fully doesn't care about others, rather it seems like she's very bad at relating to others and/or purposefully keeps others at a distance. The snippets we get of her family life are odd as well.
I think when we hear her voice change tone, rather than being out of character, its supposed to be her without a mask on. Like she portrays a calm, detached demeanor in public, but gets excited or dismayed in private during her research. Idk how to feel about it, but to me she seems to be written as neurodivergent, somewhat. I'd like to see more of her, feels like we didn't get enough to get a full picture of what she's really like.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Great design, great kit, but terrible personality
I wouldn't say terrible personality more like a questionable gray character if anything she's more like a tamed version of princess bubblegum.
@@justsomeguyworkingatmcdona6817 Eh, moral greyness and terrible personality don't have to be mutually exclusive. She's a divisive character, for sure. She may not be terrible in personality for you, but to others, it is.
@@oceanicGrimalkin I guess you're right the guy probably Doesn't like cold, calculative, emotionless and distant types.
Great *design*? Her design is so boring
She is nicknamed the mad scientist. The genius society aren't exactly saints in their regard. The only sane ones I've seen is herta and screwllum. But people like polka kakamond or Mr. Primitive who has problems of their own
this quest needed a few more drafts for the story. it felt forced and convoluted and could have been more streamlined. didn't like her before and still don't. but she is interesting.
she's too curious, wants to create life but doesn't want the responsibility that comes with creating that life. sounds like some of the Aeons already in game. she's on her way!
1:15:37 bro you scared me. i started laughing xDD
Ruan Mei is already an Aeon.
The Aeon of Simps.
Thanks, Cyno.
I personally like this quest, and I think Ruan Mei was executed pretty well, but I’m not a big fan of how much TB was just going along with it. We have the chance to turn down Kafka completely in her story quest, but here we can’t even tell Ruan Mei off for what she did to us.
“I look forward to more adventures with you”? After she drugged you? And forced you to clean her own mess? Only to make you forget it all? I’d be mad, and a lot of others would be mad. If they wanted that line so bad, they’d be better off putting it in a reflection moment or something after the quest.
Again, I enjoyed the quest a lot, but Trailblazer’s personality is one of the best parts of the game and I wish they invested more into it here. Would’ve made things feel a lot more real.
Idk why we shit on the TB when you can literally tell that they were super fucking pissed after almost suffering a near death experience from the boss fight and we go over to ruan mei immediately afterwards to demand answers. Like one of the dialogues just basically said to ruan mei that "you didn't have to lie to me" during the questioning. We DID tell her off. We DID basically accepted the fact that we would forget her for what she's done to us. There's really nothing that TB could have done better in that quest. In fact I'd argue that TB was incredibly pissed after the entire situation
Like what the other commentator said, Kafka's more direct to the Trailblazer while Ruan Mei is basically leaving us with 2 vague options with the same end result.
We did have the opportunity to call her out. Not sure if you misread the last part of the quest or not, but Trailblazer did in fact, call her out about her "lying" to them. And why wouldn't they do that? Spending the entire time in the space station to do an investigation only to end up in a boss fight that could have almost put the Trailblazer to death there - this is some motive of a morally grey character. They were left after the fight feeling betrayed and pissed off. Me personally, I would be pissed at her for putting me in a situation like this.
There was nothing much the Trailblazer could have done here. They were left with no choice to try Ruan Mei's cake, and that "anti-truth serum" basically prevents them from talking anything regarding her. I love her kit and I think she plays a big role in the meta as a break support, unfortunately her personality leaves more to be desired.
Let's not forget her abandoning her creations all for the sole purpose of "buying milk" - that's just a hard pill to swallow.
@@juggernaut_naive-sn1zs That’s a fair point. Those lines served their purpose well. I think it was the last few lines that killed it for me, especially the “I look forward to new stories with you” or whatever. Additionally, the messages with her and the Express meetups are very cordial, not how I’d expect someone to react to someone who used them for science experiments waltzing into their own home so-to-speak.
You’re right that it’s there though. Didn’t account for that. It’s been a bit since I played the quest so I don’t remember it all clearly atm.
@captainblue5096 To be fair, if TB is cordial to them afterwords, couldnt that be because, as Ruan Mei said, that they forgot about the bad things she did to them once the anti-truth serum wore off?
@@shadowbuddy8034 Oh shoot you’re right. Somehow failed to take that into account. My bad.
There’s actually an interaction where TB tells Ruan Mei that they’ve forgotten something about her after the quest so there’s that as proof.
So yeah that’s a valid point I overlooked.
The event starts at 27:12
This whole quest speaks more about Ruan Mei as a character in terms of her personality as being a sociopath and a morally grey character. On the plus side it allows different personalities of characters to shine in a quest. Not everyone has to be very nice to the main character. It just makes the game feel boring.
The comments shit on TB for their actions during the quest, but honestly there's nothing much they could've done here. And more importantly, they did call her out after the entire boss fight happened because they really want answers out of her. Being forced to eat her cake means many other things, it doesn't really lead to the "more sus approach" from the TB's point of view. You may see it as such, but your perspective is very different from the TB, so I think we need to acknowledge that instead of just shitting on the TB for the difference in POV.
Well even if after the boss we indeed call her out, it's very limited
A big issue is at the end where we can't chose to idk, be mad about what she did ?
We are forced to be act "friendly" toward her in the end message
And it's quite annoying
That’s what you think, Cy Yu.
That new boss is a serious menace!
I called Ruan Mei being crazy crazy during that one simuniverse event a while back, long before even her official drip marketing, back when she was just a card in the universe with text. I know a lot of people skipped the little flavor dialogue at the time, it was kinda long blocks of text, but I was curious about her so I read it. It was evident, even then, that she's got this whole paradigm she lives by that does not give even one fractional fuck about anyone else- other lives, peoples' agency, laws, etc. If she thinks it will help her achieve her goals, she'll do it. End of discussion.
That's such a stark set of rules to live by, and pretty solidly amoral besides, I'm not shocked that so many people had such a strong reaction to her. Personally, I love that kind of character and she's TOTALLY different from how that kind of character is often portrayed- usually they're men, lack any sense of aesthetic, often times they scorn "the arts" like music, culinary pursuits, etc. Things she does absolutely value... just not as much as the research. Ruan Mei feels like a True Neutral to me that's unerringly motivated to her own goals... which may or may not wind up destroying the universe, and she doesn't care if it does or doesn't. It's not something I would ever condone in real life, we have ethics considerations on science for a reason. But in fiction? It's so much fun to play with.
I feel the same about Firefly. I find her behavior abhorrent, and I think we're meant to feel that way. But in her abhorrence, there is so much entertainment value. We love to hate them, and that's the draw. In my opinion, a character with many people who love them and many who hate them is probably a more well designed character than one who most people are vaguely positive but ultimately neutral towards. Bold character traits tend to factionalize people, and in fiction, that conflict is itself a source of interest.
Reason why I didn’t pull for her. No matter the hype about her kit being OP, I didn’t care for her design and much more when I got to know her through this quest.
Tbh same I want SW but didn't have chance I guess she's fine 🤷
I don't like her but I find Ratio interesting cause of that cutscene with Screwllum and his leaked voicelines, I wanna see what else they do with his character and Screwllum too.
that fight absolutely kicked my *ass* 💔☹️
I'd say Ruan Mei's personality/character is written quite bad. I'm not against evil or morally gray characters (I actually love such characters), but Ruan Mei didn't feel like a real, well-written, and evil or morally gray character to me. She feels like she's just there to exist with her wish to become an Aeon one day and that's it. She doesn't feel like an interesting character.
You just explained morally gray. She wants to fulfill her wish and her own interests. She's not good or evil.
But I get what you mean. She is kind of boring.
@@2k3d bland, raw, and boring :D
@@2k3dmorally grey doesn't mean bland
The heart eyes is exactly how I felt when ratio showed up
I’m with you Cyyu. I don’t like her. The way she just abandons the creatures she created. The way she made a monster bug that could have killed people. She is an unethical scientist. As someone who is part of that field irl I absolutely hate that, nothing angers me more lol. Is she an interesting character sure, but that’s not enough for me to like her.
Of course tho since this a futuristic sci-fi game, it needs a crazy scientist character. So I get why they created her character this way.
I am for real one of the few people that loved her? I litereally love her charavter design and alike.
And some of you need to see that trailblazer is their own chaecater and not a self insert like some gachas, and there is the fact that we sre following a script, and in that script we like ruan mei so it doesn't matter if you guys want to be rude or not nice to her, Trailblazer will be nice to her.
And some of you guys comment that we act cordial as everything with the emanator didn't happen, look how fun, ruan mei did say we would forget the evil things she did am i right?
Meh - I played HI3. The stuff Ruan Mei does is tame compared to stuff that Otto Apocalypse, Jackal, and Mobius did in that game.
Fr I'm worried if they add Mobius in star rail.
I played HI3 too and I don't think it's appropriate to compare her to all three of these characters. Her story and character are close to Mobius, but still worse written.
Let's be honest, a lot of people liked Ruan Mei because she hot (for someone??), not because of her story. In HI3, you can hate Mobius and Otto, but admire how well they are written and respect that.
@@_natalie_723 inappropriate to compare characters that exist in the same multiverse? Uh - yeah. Whatever you say (rolling my eyes)
I've never played the previous Hoyo games, but I guess something similar to Bondrewd (also a complicated scientist character) from Made in Abyss in terms of immoral actions?
@@_natalie_723Actually it’s very appropriate to compare her to them; it’s Honkai.
I’d also compare her to Dr. Mei on a lesser sense as there are slight similarities in terms of personality; imo she’s more a mixture of Mobius & Dr. Mei. General personality of Dr. Mei and mad scientist aspect from Mobius as, if you read through the files in the Secluded Zone, you can see the amount of fucked up shit she’s done to test subjects.
When I first played this I had to take a good few minutes to attempt to process what the f*ck happened in this quest beyond the big bug psudo-emanator attacking me, but that genuinely didn't help me at all and I thought "maybe I'm overreacting and it wasn't as pointless and stupid as you think it is." because surely the writing couldn't be THAT bad, right?
Nah, I was absolutely right first time around, this quest is a bunch of incomprehensible nonsense that jumps between awful tangents and basically amounted to nothing in the end just for the sake of adding another boss to the game and to give the Ruan mei simps material to simp over.
Ruan mei herself is a TERRIBLY boring character and is pretty much just a terrible person (if you could even call someone who acts so inhuman a "person" to begin with..) who has no moral qualms about endangering copious amounts of people because she's curious 😐
She speaks a bunch of flowery nonsense that could very easily be cut down to probably a third of the length it is, she's a completely amoral and awful "person," she drugged us and we just.. didn't do anything about it??? And then the trailblazer just acts like they're chummy at the end and takes care of her stupid creations that she abandoned????? Like, what the hell is all this 💀
And yes, her design is also boring as hell.. they had something cooking when she was mysterious and had her eyes closed in the light cone and from her SU artwork, but they took her out of the oven WAY too early and made her look SO bland and uninspired with practically nothing about her standing out other than her playing an instrument I guess (even though Serval already did something similar)?
One of the biggest L's Star rail has taken tbh, she just sucks regardless of how braindead broken her gameplay is.
I am not against characters who are grey or evil/mad scientists, but Ruan Mei is just uninteresting and boring to me. I like Dottore, Otto and Dr.Ratio and such they are interesting to watch and listen to, even if I don't support them.
At least I know I wasn't alone in hating her character. I haven't been following Star Rail as much as I used to, and am now behind on the main questline. But even without that context, I still actively disliked her character through the entirety of her story. Almost made me regret pulling her.
I already regretted getting her. Only pulled for another harmony 5*, I dislike her character and personality from the start.
For me, it’s basically “you are on this team because you are useful, not because I like you. The second that stops being the case, you’re out.” At least with the others in my team, I actually like them
You know, i have * almost* regretted pulling for Luocha, but the way his personality is taken, and by how he cares (probably a ruse, but im coping) im still holding the rope of hoping hes not evil
I pulled her because she is meta that's all
@@crimsondemon6231that's a low mindset to have. Waifu > meta
Talk about first impressions, first time meeting the lady and she roofies us.
Her being a badly written boring villain isn't even the main problem, my problem is that as the player we're given 0 choice if we wanna help or not, we just meet this random boring lady and we start doing shit for her
boring u ass
That's alright CyYu, after going through this earlier this afternoon, me too...
That's why I'll be only pulling for Firefly to spite Ruan Mei!
Ruan Mei was so cruel that some of her creations killed themselves for all the shes not to bad people in the comments.
Wait, where did you find out some of her creations killed themselves? I honestly can't remember if I discovered that or missed it 🤔
Either way, I'll adopt all of those adorable little kitty-cakes!
@@sairi_aFrom her logs. It also makes me feel bad reading about the kitty cakes. She wants to seal them in the seclusion zone after realising they’re failed experiments. The fact that she labels it as subject disposal is depressing to say the least.
I love you stuff dude
I didn’t realize you could make a phase flame! I would’ve chosen different options! 🤯
I just did Ruan Mei’s quest today and it’s ez with Tingyun, Imbibitor Lunae, Yukong and Natasha
I feel like for hypercarry teams, you need to have 2 buffers and a healer
The anti-truth serum made me wonder if TB can trick his way around it by trying to *write the truth* or something close to it. It'd make for more interesting dialogues as well as calling her out.
But the TB wasn't trying to call her out, they canonically like her.
@@Himomo3 That's the point. There is no choice *other* than being forced to like her just because TB does, even if the player feels the opposite.
@@oceanicGrimalkin Well, my point is that TB is not a self-insert character. You can feel however you want, but the TB's character is written in a certain way and that includes liking Ruan Mei.
@@Himomo3 Then making choices for the game is moot then. TB is their own character, but just like Harry Du Bois from Disco Elysium, it's us who chooses what happens and the MC is mostly silent.
I wish RM had a lab coat or maybe a hat that looks like a Petri dish that would’ve been so cool.
It felt like they wanted us to hate her as a character if so they nailed imo. Awesome kit but WTH personality
I am on your side with this one now! She rubbed me the entire wrong way the entire time!
She wasn't even written to be a compelling gray character, like those in BG3. She just made me incredibly pissed to the point I decided skip on pulling for her once I finally got Blade.
I will eventually pull for everyone but, yeah, she's not a priority yet, despite her good buffing.
Same here, the two main points that really brings her down is her potentially harming Trailblazer from the troubles that she herself created, and the lifeforms that she failed to take responsibility for creating them.
P.S: Do you love the critters? I do, a lot. XD
Dude, im in my 73 pity, after that quest i just got so mad, im deciding i'll save these pulls of DanIL
@@liandoaethend2403 Im saving for Kafka haha XD
I wanted to say she is sweet but psycho but she is not even sweet.she lkes sweet things but she literally drugged us.she is like a selfish person who lets her curiosity get better of her😅
Princess bubblegum basically
Yeah.. ikr. She reminds me with her. She don't even realize what she is doing can be bad. Just look at the lemon guy. 🤣
Rolled for her and at a early 30 pity(had exactly 30 tickets) I won the 50/50 first day of her banner(Got Argenti few weeks ago and won the 50/50 that time as well!)
But I’m still mad at her.
Yeah I get that she wants to learn more about creature life but a Emanator that spawns bugs when you attack it(2 in second phase with Explosive Bugs thrown in the mix) that’s BS.
I’ve finished levels, traces, and relics for Ruan Mei…
But since we’re getting a free dr. ratio Imma have to do the bug boss again.
I'm really surprised I haven't seen anybody compare her to Dottore from Genshin yet. They're quite similar people, yet Dottore was never called "morally grey" 💀
The main difference between them is that Dottore is someone who specifically is willing and eager to step over the corpses of whoever he needs to kill in order to achieve results in his experiments, while Ruan mei isn't going out of her way to try and harm people in the process of experimenting its that she literally doesn't care about consequences and potential dangers which is a different kind of detached fucked up mindset 😐
@@sneakretster Psychopath vs sociopath. Both of them aren't morally gray
@@sneakretster Actually there's a hidden bit of information in the game that indicates she tortured one of her creatures as a test.
@@Ivy-jq6di oh don't worry, I'm not trying to justify her being morally gray, I despise her and she's definitely just a bad person similarly to dottore who I also hate🗿
If she managed to achieve it, I think she’d be the Despair or the Wonder
I like that her kit is the only thing carried her banner. I kinda regret pulling for her lol. I'm still unimpressed with her Xianzhou girls design syndrome
Meta- fantastic. Design and personality? Meh
Perhaps not that true
Even tho I find her design really boring because.. litteraly female Dan Heng
Lot of people like it and simp for her because.. Well attractive female, what can we say
I think even if she wasn't broken, lot of people still would have pulled because of simping
Actual, mature Herta when
Bro, she is just a narcissistic grandma. She made her dolls look like young girls because of her self-awareness about aging.
@@VovaMykytenko She can probably age backwards if she wanted.
@@lazaruslong697
"Herta: This is Madam Herta, or better known as member 83 of the Genius Society. In her childhood, she solved the solitary waves theory and the Spark model hypothesis. In her adolescence, she found the Sigma Baryons conversion method. In middle-age, she proposed the Herta sequence and published a paper on de-aging.
Herta: In her senior years, she managed to reverse her own age via de-aging, and went on to solve the mystery of the imaginary leakage phenomenon, and even captured and sealed a stellaron. Madam Herta has saved the planet she was on from destruction 19 times and has met the Aeons twice."
Her true appearance might be similar to Nahida considering her personality.
She reminds me of Purah from Breath of the Wild cuz she also reversed her aging. It's up to the devs to decide what appearance to go by.
1:52:32 CYYU don’t be so heartless
Idk I feel like Ruan Mei’s personality wasn’t displayed well in this quest
The vibe I’ve gotten from her is like a detached mother that has expectations of her “children” and I think that would be very interesting to see in her goal to be a god
But I only really understood that near the end of her quest and from the texts shared during the cat event
Idk tell me if I’m off
I'm gonna go against the popular opinion and say, I like that we have characters that aren't friendly and are supposed to be hated by the audience. It's better than having everyone be friendly toward the Trailblazer. That's probably weird to say and I might get jumped in the comments for that but for me personally, having characters in this world that aren't always friendly is great. I do agree the Trailblazer should have an option to respond negatively to Ruan Mei, but other than that I'm interested. I'm very much looking forward to what Hoyo will do with these characters later. And lowkey, Ruan Mei reminds me of Ichinose from Persona 5 Strikers and Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time.
Edit: In case anyone might think this in the future; this isn't to crap on anyone who doesn't like Ruan Mei. You can hate her guts and that's perfectly fine. Personally, I just think she's interesting and a little different from the characters we met so far (newer characters), but I don't care much for her personality.
Shouldn't the Trailblazer and Ruan Mei have a more hostile relationship then?
If this were the case then we'd have the chance to tell her off like we did with Kafka. The devs want us to like Ruan Mei, so we don't get the chance.
@@darsath84 I literally say in my own comment that I agree that the Trailblazer needs to have an option of us responding negatively to her. If not be negative towards her in all the options.
@@misslethal2355 And that is exactly what I didn't like, as I said in my own comment. I said I don't agree that there is no option to respond negatively to her.
Of course it's great to have bad person and not just friendly one
And TBH, most people think like you
Of course lot of people dislike Ruan Mei because she is made to be unlikable but interesting
But like you say, the real thing people complain about and the real thing people really don't like about this quest
It's just how she get out free of any consequences, just a friendly puppy trailblazers who simp for her
Sure there are some people that would complain about her being an anwful person because they want only friendly and cool characters
But if they just made so that we could really be angry at her and make her think of her action and not just "you didn't have to lie to me :("
I think there would be so much less complaint and hate
It just seems so much worse and disturbing than what Kafka does
I honestly think she is not outright evil but not good. And fighting the bug king was so hard I just now beaten it and the second act part just needed right team but I finished it. The only thing I am stuck on the companion quest for Argenti
Yeah
She's an awful person but she can't be said to be evil
Evil means wanting to harm, hurt and destroy. And most of the time taking pleasure into that
While she doesn't want to harm people, it's just that she takes actions without caring if it causes harm or not
I actually got Ruan mei this morning on my 55 pull
Ruan Mei is just Jumba Jookiba with a Super Crown
As a Elysian Realm fan i see this as a win 🗿
She was Bondrewd's wife.
I agree with the title 💀
I love Ruan Mei
Ruan mei makes me think of rhinedottir for some reason actually
Im never doing this quest because of the bug boss, omg......
This whole quest gave me metroid vibes
I got Dead Space vibes
@@DarkSeraph that too
Alian isolation vibes
Im sorry but its still Far for Acheron but im imagining her Ult animation to be entering portals while slashing the enemy just sharing hahhaa
she’s a sociopath and I love that about her, but what I hate is how there’s not really any accountability for her actions and that TB just acts like a puppy throughout the quest and likes her no matter what dialogue you say/choose
1:46:34 - 1:46:42
I don't like Bronya because I can't condemn her decisions. Same with Ruan Mei. I hate the lack of choices
I actually love her, she's so unassuming, yet so ruthless, not a malicious kind of evil, but one born out of carelessness and selfishness. Her character stories also show that she was already like this as a child, with small glimpses and blips hinting at deeper emotions deep beneath the surface, she recognizes there's a hollowness inside of her she wants to push through but, well, she doesn't have the emotional tools to do it. I wonder how she will evolve, will she manage to open to others' needs and see the worlds and life around her, through real bonds with her creations, the TB or Herta, or will she double down onto the lonely road towards godhood, hermetic to any plea that isn't hers? Does she believe becoming a God will finally fill that void inside her, and let her explore the entire spectrum of human emotions, drives, and ultimately the purpose of life? Does she believe it is what it should come down to, for her to be able to feel and see ? Will her hubris be punished, and her own control be ripped out of her, putting her through that vulnerability she put her creations and the TB through? a quietly interesting character to me, offsetting the more "explosive" lore-heavy characters Hoyo releases.
That big bug is just not dying is it ?
I got Ruan Mei at 4 pity
1:32:37 I don't think its out of character because shes alone. Ruan Mei always talks about concealing her emotions, but she doesn't need to when she's alone.
Also, the person who pointed out she was getting excited wasn't just stating the obvious, they were giving a reason why her voice was higher pitched.
I agree with most of what you have to say about Ruan Mei, but it does feel like you're reaching in a few places and being influenced by your preconceived bias.
On another note, Dr. Ratio is LEAGUES better than Ruan Mei, he makes me smile and laugh whenever I see or hear him!
I'm guilty, i like evil fictional women
26:25 story quest continues
I don't like Ruan Mei as much (her introduction line was so pretentious lmao) as I thought I would, but she is an interesting character. Kinda reminds me of Albedo when you first meet him, so maybe she'll warm up more over time (or maybe she'll be like rhinedottir)
34:00 lol captain underpants what nostalgia
I don't really care about a character being likeable or unlikeable. I just think she is pretty uninteresting and forgettable.
1:50:55 - 1:51:42 😢😢
Don't people know Polka Kakamond? She's worst
Well better than worse doesn't mean good
is Ruan Mei just the genderbent Dottore-
❤❤❤❤❤
I thought they wrote her character really well. She is definitely complex and compelling, in my opinion. I just have a major major soft spot for animals, so I do have dislike for her simply for that reason.
Cy Yu really just had to pick the most annoying donation sounds, didn't he
the thing about ruan mei is that she doesn't do what she is incapable of... she's unable to feel the extent of empathy that is desired from her, and so she won't pretend. she's not entirely unkind, merely unapologetic. she's sincere in that regard.
That being said, can even geniuses tell the difference? l annot, at least... I do not understand what "love" is and cannot respond to their feelings.
she asks you to consider a genuine question: is it wrong of her to not put forward something false, a mere mimicry of sentiment and love? to wish to live her life untethered and truthfully, rather than an ignorant lie?
I think she’s fine.. better than boring friendly characters to MC in every region
My issue was not her personality, but the way the Trailblazer reacted to her actions. They just got drugged and then went along with whatever she wanted them to do... Really? They already gave us the opportunity to turn down Kafka, so why not do something similar here. Or just give us the opportunity to be rude or show any appropriately negative reaction at all. This was infuriating
boring evil isn't an improvement in the slightest
@@Relevart9169Especially when it’s also one that is just allowed to get away Scott free with no repercussions. At that point it’s as though Mihoyo is putting her on a pedestal in spite of amoral actions
@@_dragonflies_the turning down Kafka is companion quest tho, I mean sure they can turn down Ruan Mei but that just ends the entire main story which well imo I don’t mind if they implement that
@@Omnislash7what repercussion do u want tho? Get arrested? TB being angry at her? Need to be more specific.. if it’s TB part ok I get it, getting arrested er I don’t think u can achieve that she’s not tied to any region (she left xianzhou). Herta literally don’t care what she does so even if u report to her it’s useless and this is her space station so she’s the boss (wtv Ruan Mei action is in this story the bugs)
If she was a male character then no one was hating 😏
This is my first time seeing anyone play this ruan mei event and I’m surprised like 90% of these comments are people that hate her, I really liked her lmao I guess the consensus is that people hate her personality, but I thought that was what made her interesting, it’s nice to have a female character thats not either another small cute girl, or a dommy mommy archetype. Even if she turns out to be evil, I’m happy to have the variety tbh. For some reason it always seems like a lot of people are far more accepting of others liking morally grey or evil characters if they are male rather than female. Its like one gets to be a bad boy but the other is just a soulless bitch
Genuinely considering not taking the free Dr Ratio, I really cannot stomach his personality and he'd stay at lvl 1 and never used.
Ruan Mei... I love morally grey characters and i found her interesting, not interesting enough to pull, but i genuinely preferred her half of the TBC vs Ratios.
Thats just me.
Oh yeah. Guy like him exist even in real life. He is eccentric guy. The funny part is Screwllum having debate with Dr Ratio. Just reminds me with Silver Wolf. 😂
Not taking a free character just sounds stupid. There’s literally no reason to do that. XD
@@CodeTetsu I don't like the character and he serves no benefit to my account. I'll send you my copy of him LOL :)
@@ZephyrBluePaddy It’s literally free. There is no detriment to having him. Heck if you level him a little you get standard passes for free. If you end up liking his character later you already have him, he’s super strong, and he is an imaginary dps which is only fulfilled by Daniel.
Still a better person than Dori if you ask the haters 🤦♂
why cant ppl tolerate chars with an evil personality it makes them so much more unique and better. shes so well written, hating on her means shes just that good. why do all chars have to be so kind and happy
No. Not at all you are missing the point. It's different for example hating a character from a story standpoint that is actually sought after because they want to create a divisive opinion with this "grey" character. That hating them from a writing standpoint. I hate her because the writters forced the TB to not be able to shit on her like we can do to Kafka, sampo, etc. Instead we get a dormant TB? Totally out of character and the worst is that we keep talking with her like nothing happened after. That's what I hate of her. Forcing things is not the answer to create inmersion and that she gets scott free.
@@benjamin-pj1of oh i assumed ppl hated her because of her apathetic nature and not caring about who or what she experiments on. i actually also agree on that too, i didnt like how the MC was only upset for like 2 seconds and then forgave her immeditatly and forgot abt what happened
@@a.bygoner Yeah there is some people that don't like her becouse of he attitude which is also understandable because that's what she's is supossed to do, make you have a divisive opinion. But honestly from the comments the most frecuent opinion is the one we both have. That the TB should not have been ok with her. All we can do is complain about it in the survey so this never happens again, I dont even know how this can happen if the TB is supossed to be sort of a vessel to the players. All in all I hope you have a good day night or whathever!
People love Madara because he is well written while Ruan Mei is not. 😷
we are allowed to dislike whoever we want. villains exist to be hated, you liking them is the quirk
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