Finally Someone who actually reads and take notes of the events. Yes it's not just Raiden. Most of the characters are poorly written, cringe moments or a bad background. This is proof that genshin is a bad written story and at some point it just became a game with no end game and with so many lackluster events, stories. In reality It's just a game with good visuals. And I don't think it's going to change anytime soon. Give punishing gray raven a try soul. 😊
I agree with Poriya’s comment. Punishing Gray Raven could be your speed and you can skip dialogue/cutscenes in the game if you don’t enjoy the story. The gameplay is challenging yet fun imo.
I thought that Sara believed that Archons gave Visions so she was thankful to Raiden for that, plus I'm pretty sure Sara isn't that old, but I haven't played in over a year so I could be misremembering
This could've been a darker follow up from the Archon quest to Ei's story quest lbh... If Ei were to step outside of the plain of Euthymia and change the law, the people of Inazuma will IMMEDIATELY cast her out as a refugee and replace an electro Archon with Yae miko. I heard there was a fanfic about Yae miko being the next Archon while Ei isn't and still recovering from her irredeemable decisions outside of Inazuma while the mc talks to her. I don't know which fanfic is from but that would've been an interesting premise if you're curious to read it.
my main problem with her is not that she did all these terrible things. it's the fact that she doesn't get punished for it. everyone accepts her. and she acts like everything's fine
@@omegothic I don’t think there is any need of that… scara’s fans hatred is enough already 🙂 And if I remember correctly there was some watatsumi soldier who has shown some remaining hatred towards the shogun’s army during kokomi’s story quest
@omegothic91 While playing the last arc I was fully convinced that Yae was plotting to overthrow her and become the new electro archon, not out of malice towards her friend, but because she thought Ei wasn't a good ruler, Ei then would either get exiled which would eventually lead to her experiencing things that would change her world view for the better or she would go off on her own in another pursuit of enlightenment which would result in the same thing ...but noup
Raiden: (brakes every human rights regulation) Raiden: "my bad" Every one: "Yo Guys she said she was sorry, maybe she isn't that bad" Players who acutely read and listen to the story and don't simp: "What the fuck?"
When i finished inazuma i was like “ bro what the quack is this “ like how does a my little pony archon get forgiven ( i say my little pony because she looks like twilight sparkle )
@@ill_will8077the commissions or anyone could at least have a facade of content when in front of Raiden but still hold hidden discontentment or maybe even resentment. But not a single soul holds any semblance of hidden resentment for her. Which is weird considering what she did
I remember having this conversation multiple times (because i really hate Raiden and Yae) and no matter what i was saying all i heard in response were "Zhongli was worse, he abandoned his people, he decided to test them and it's stupid" and "You don't understand, she knew everything, in the eyes of the Archon some small lives don't matter, because she wanted to achieve eternity!" and "She doesn't need to apologize, she is the god! Why god should apologize to mere humans?" etc. and etc. At that point i understood that arguing with those people is pointless, no matter what i say they're the right ones, and i'm the mere hater who doesn't understand the grandiosity of Raiden's personality. Who needs logic anyway when boobasword conquers everything?
And honestly, Scaramouche's story made her character even worse... even Miko wasn't spared. Like bro, why can't you dump the guy in a damn orphanage?! Or offer him a place with caretakers in your palace? Why those ladies only thought about two options, abandoning or murdering? Who tf thought that it's a good idea to leave emotionally unstable infant in a sealed domain?! And how in the world the oh so smart Yae couldn't offer less risky options on how to deal with Scara after learning that Ei doesn't really want to kill him? It's just so dumb it's ridiculous.
it's crazy that you see more ppl blaming dottore for scara versus realizing ei is guilty from the get go. It shows how ppl will always defend their "waifus"
@@softjytsu exactly, i dislike when people become purposely dense about a character's lore to defend another character they like. Ei was first to abandon him, then Dottore took advantage the emotionally vulnerable scara.
@raiden8063 no one's saying dottore is innocent, and pierro by extension, since he was the one that ordered dottore to put the tatarasuna sabotage in motion, and the harbingers have their own agenda. they're just saying ei is not innocent since she indirectly played a hand in Scaramouche's downfall, albeit indirectly, by sealing him inside a domain, doomed to sleep by eternity, instead of looking after him. Or hell, maybe just give him up for adoption to a good family, teach him some shit before you dump him in the middle of nowhere. Ei failed her creation, who saw her as a mother.
@@softjytsuPpl blame Dottore cause he's the one responsible for murdering the friends he found, manipulating him and torturing him through experiments. Even if Ei had abandoned him, without the Fatui he probably would've lived a good life.
In my opinion liyue and the false death of Rex lapis was the best we’ve got so far. The cinematics truly show the massive budget they started the game with!
@@lorraineviruet8973 well, if we're talking about specific part then yeah liyue act3 is a great choice I love it too but overall story I think it has to go to sumeru
I only like it a little bit more, because when you stared the quest I was actually scared of her. I thought it was a good idea to have a insane archon who went off the deep end. It sounds like I'd rather fight a dictator than a drug dealer issue. If that makes sense. But I absolutely agree with baals character sucking so hard it actually upsets me
Tectone is a troll and a narcissist. Best not to give his opinions any weight, cause you never know when he's baiting to farm drama, or he's coming from a personal/simp opinion.
I hope our criticisms about Raiden Shogun will change how The Tsaritsa is written in the future. She's literally like the most important character considering she's an archon that founded the Fatui.
Yeah no have you seen her birthday letters and art? Her appearances in events? All the wholesome official art and fanart about her? Nothing was heard. I expect the Tsaritsa to rival her in terms of bad writing.
@@Lala-g4pI mean its already too late to fix raiden. If they did another 180 and turned her evil again that would make it even worse. Its better to take criticism and make another character be written good from the very begining
My headcanon is the people of Inazuma are just scared of the Shogun doing a second vision hunt decree/sakoku decree (or just get mad in general) if they disrespected her, so all they do is try to forget the event like it never happened and put on fake smiles whenever she's around. Like if you're a north korean citizen and see kim jong un in the streets, you're not gonna talk shit in front of him cause you know he's gonna end you on the spot, so all you can do is just smile and wave pretending to be happy.
@@stfilo1948 You forget that the vision hunt decree also caused inazuma to be isolated and the people couldn't leave the island until it was over. I'm sure they wouldn't want something like that to happen again. Edit: ah my bad, I seem to have mistaken the sakoku decree as the vision hunt decree. But you get the idea, sakoku decree closes the border = people of inazuma aren't happy cause they're stuck there.
but the fact that has to be a headcanon for you is the problem , the writing is so poor because it never explains wtf happened next and the way Ayato comes into the story feels random asf as well
this might out of topic, but another badly written character imo is Kokomi, no hate to her fans and VA but every time she is featured in an event or something, everyone's like "OMG it's the renowned watatusmi general who is adept in the art of war" "she's a genius strategist", and I'm like, bitch, where? Alhaitham was more of a strategist than she is, and he actually able to show it off lol
@@kamikazeyo1379 true but lets remember he graduated from the akademiya whil being a scribe so he knew the ins and outs and what needed to be done, alhaitham as a KID was bored when he first got into the Akademiya after a day so his grandma homeschooled him until she died, so he's just naturally a smart ass character
The sumeru AQ showed alhaitam being a tactical genius than every kokofish mention ive seen. Only thing not making me go batshit on her is that her aesthetics are pretty and her eng voice sounds like asmr
For the longest time I thought there was just something wrong with me, it's nice to see that there are people who see the same problems I do with Raiden Shogun and the inazuma archon quest
The most frustrating part of Raiden to me is that she actually has ideas in her character that can make her incredibly compelling... but they aren't properly explored at all. She faces no meaningful consequences for her actions and is therefore not driven to improve herself by those consequences. Hence, the character development she does get is utterly uncompelling. And since Raiden is the core part of Inazuma's storyline, she drags it aaaaaaall down with herself.
That just makes every character in Inazuma (and their Story Quests) and the Archon Quest itself completely irrelevant as fuck, and thus why I don't give a rat's ass about any of them. The ones I care about are the characters of Sumeru and Nahida, since they were written very WELL. Don't forget about Monstaldt, Liyue, and their characters, they were written well.
YES! THANK YOU! She caused her own people to forget their loved ones, and lose their personality/soul through her vision hunt decree, created Scara and threw him away cause he was too emotional when she gave him the gnosis, AND put a hollow husk of herself as dictator while she stayed in her own domain cause of "grief" while also knowing everything that's been going on and being ok with it. Honestly, she was one of the most selfish, uncaring, and 'life ruining' (for regular people), characters in genshin. And she gets forgiven by the fandom just like that cause she's hot and was "grieving". Meanwhile, everyone hates on Scara even though his first days being brought into this world was being tossed away due to him being too "emotional", then being used and manipulated by others to the point of torture and which led him wanting to lose said emotions. Everyone blames him for Teppei dying, when in the archon quest it shows/says that signora handed Scara the factory the day we meet him. and he literally says right then and there that "someone should be arriving soon so I better make a warm welcome" (meaning us). He literally arrived that day then met us, so if Teppei's death is to be blamed on anyone, it's the fatui/tsaritsa and/or Ei since she "knew" and was "ok" with everything happening in inazuma at the time colluding with the fatui. But most people overlook those details cause they only see it once and forgot about it, or they have their own headcannons from the storyline and believe said hc no matter what else is shown. That's why I love this channel. You see through the bs, and point out the things most people would be too scared to point out (or just live in ignorance) because "mommy".
The fact people forgive her actions just because she's hot is pathetic and stupid as fuck. That's superficial and lazy, not to mention that they're simps with no critical thinking skills whatsoever.
Couldn't have said it better myself. If somebody says that they liked Teppei, that's fine. But if someone says that Teppei was a well written character, and hate on Scara for mocking him, I'd raise an eyebrow.
The way she just discarded Scaramouche was also kinda... But then the defenders come like "Ooh she gave him freedom and a "protected by the shogun" charm" like OK BUT YOU JUST GONNA THROW A SENTIENT BEING YOU MADE AWAY??? PROM NIGHT DUMPSTER BABYD SCARAMOUCHE
At this point she should’ve made that bully kid clean the entire tunshikaku if given him a freedom is a mistake. And to be honest she should’ve done that so we won’t have to resurrect that bully piece of plastic who didn’t just tried to destroy the MC for three times but also brainwashing Haypasia and bullying nahida before starting to cry like a baby when she took the gnosis from him
This is proof that a character could do Griffith level things and get away with it as long as he/she is attractive lol. Also Raiden says she wants immortality for her people, but she never says or gives any hints of how, I mean, what was she doing all this time? gathering de dragon balls or something? What was the point of 500 years of meditation or whatever she was doing?
damn straight When her banner sales skyrocketed to some of the highest numbers genshin has ever seen, We weren't thinking she's a good person. I bought her thinking: "BoOb SwoRd"
What’s also stupid is that Raiden didn’t step down from her role as the ruler of Inazuma. The sheer amount and weight of the mistakes she did to her nation, it’s crazy that her people (especially Sara) still accept her. Her retiring from being the ruler would have been a sign that she acknowledges the consequences of what she did and strive to become better. Mark my words: After Genshin Impact’s story is completed (which could take like 3-4 years), the country of Inazuma will once again become what it was during the Archon Quest.
That's an interesting theory! But in my opinion, I think it's pretty unlikely that the sukoku decree and vision hunt decree would ever come back in any capacity, the fatui were actively manipulating the shogun and the situation to their advantage, regardless of any of this, I still agree that her writing is jank lol 😆
Isn't Sara delusional because she believes that Shogun granted her vision and it saved her life, something like that? She's basically a fanatic, so she's the last person who will go against the Shogun.
I highly doubt it bc Inazuma is ultimately a slave to the whims of the writers of genshin and, to an extent, the community. So as long as she remains a favorite, the chances of the writers showing realistic consequences of her actions are very low
One of the few times I remember the citizens acknowledging the shogun in a "negative" way after all she did was during the TCG event and Raiden was questioning why the citizens were so afraid of her during her matches. Even then though, I doubt it really had anything to do with her past actions and more so them being intimidated playing against their literal god unfortunately which is a shame because I feel like it should be something that gets addressed in a future quest.
soul may not remember but people definitely were afraid of her in her hangout story quest. like when they went to buy raiden a book and someone was afraid she would get offended by it.
one thing I feel like nobody really mentions is the fact that the shogun puppet just seems to be dead set on killing aether at all means necessary because he's an "enemy of eternity" and yet they never elaborated as to why he's an enemy of eternity, it feels like the just wanted to make a character that wanted aether dead for no reason other than she can
I do find it so funny how Ei is one of the worst written character while her son is one of the best written. I'm glad Scara deleted himself from the worlds memories, Ei would have just messed him up more tbh. This video was great!!
@@quietguyjosh4643 with her shit writing you should be glad he will never confront her, the only scenario this game will allow is Scara forgiving her or even having him liking her without showing the process of him forgiving her or her admitting any mistakes
Raiden is pretty much social judgement in a nutshell. "Oh? He/She commited multiple crimes against humanity and has spread irreversible damage to the world? No way! He/She is hot, He/She clearly wouldn't do that! You hallucinating and shit." *Lmao*
@rickynguyen5108 If anything, if she just had some aknowledgement, and traveler had to help her reform. That'd be way better. An amateur writer could do better than the ending Hoyo gave to Inazuma. That's saying something, cuz Sumeru was sick.
@@mattsopiratoso790 True, if her actions were truly acknowledged and she had to atone for them with the traveler helping her reform, that'll be cool. A fucking monkey could have written better than what Mihoyo did.
I think that in Yae Mikos shrine there is a huge Men In Black neuralyzer to wipe periodically the npc's, characters and players minds of the past actions done by Raiden/Ei. That is why that mountain shrine can be seen from very far on other nations.
Oh my god! Yeah the story itself is fine, but the fact that during her story quest they're in AWE of her!!!???? Like, this woman quite literally destroyed peoples' lives, and sure, the non-vision holders, fine, but at least have Thoma or Gorou or SOMEONE show up and act cold towards her for what she did! The fact that it wasn't acknowledged drives me insane
As much as I love her design, I still won't pull for her due to her story and the fact Hoyoverse tried sooo hard to get you to like her and that just made me hate her even more. One argument used is the fact it's based on Feudal Japan and how people were basically brainwashed into believing the government was always right back then, hence why the people of Inazuma are perfectly fine with Ei's actions, which imo makes her even worse.
Yeah. Horribly-written character and dumbass Mihoyo trying so hard to get you to like her that it's insulting to your intelligence. Fuck Mihoyo, they should have written her better to begin with. Also, that Feudal Japan expy just makes her worse in my eyes, and in the eyes of those who have a fucking brain and not blind.
I wanted to pull for all the archons since they’re so strong, but since I played her story I’ll always skip her, the way they wrote her left a really bad taste in my mouth.
This whole video is so satisfying to hear because that's how I've felt about her and the story as well and I'm still baffled by the people defending her or saying she did nothing wrong, I hope Tectone reacts to this vid because he's one of the biggest defender of the Inazuma arc. And btw I also don't like Yae. I love villains as well, in games, anime, shows, comics or movies I always gravitate towards villains as well, and dislike the fact that a character needs to be morally good to be playable.
It’s a bit frustrating that Yae acts like Raiden is just a sulking child having a small tantrum. Just lets everything happen and seems to only care for Raiden’s wellbeing, not of Inazuma. She kind of nudges things in a way that would make Ei wake up and leave her “eternity”. But for Raidens sake. Of course we cannot know everything and Yae isn’t the most straightforward person. Maybe she knew her words and actions would be ignored and had to be sneaky.
Yeah, it's honestly pathetic, really. A character DOESN'T NEED to be good to be playable. Trying to make them good and playable just ruins the writing behind them. Look at FGO's Doman Ashiya, he's evil as fuck and he revels in it, and he's playable.
Please don't take this as an attack or flaming and I apologize for the TL;DR of criticism I'm about to inflict on you, but this video is not really that well-researched. If it's just meant to be a funny video dunking on a character you don't like then fair enough, but as a serious analysis it kind of fails due to information being omitted or otherwise misconstrued in favor of your argument. You kind of touch on the bad aspects of how Raiden was handled (which I agree there are!) but it's wrapped in some points that either feel like they were interpreted in bad faith or are even just outright objectively incorrect. This is gonna be two parts cause RUclips's weird (apologies again for the length here, I hate commenting on this site for this reason). 2:30 - Raiden didn't really "enslave" anyone; the Sakoku decree certainly made it much harder to come and go (coupled with the corrupt Kanjou commission over-taxing people and basically extorting them) but they weren't 100% trapped on principle. Beidou even says that she's visited Inazuma while the decree was still going on. 3:25 - the Archons don't give people visions. It's possible they have some influence on it since supposedly no new Electro visions have appeared since the Sakoku decree was enacted, but they are outright stated to not be the ones handing them out. Any story that says they do (the Vishaps or Sara) are from the perspective of non-divinity; I'm going to trust the actual god on this one. 3:40 - this is a messy area but visions affect people differently. Sure Ayaka showed us people who were affected negatively by it, but you also have Itto who was not affected at all, or that guy who gave his vision to Ayato who said he was actually thankful to lose his vision and it just felt like a burden he didn't want. This is their (admittedly not that well told) attempt at showing nuance in the scenario. 3:55 - the Shogun had no idea the war was going on; it was waged by the Tenryou commission, the head of which later gets arrested for it when the Shogun finds out. This is honestly kind of dumb since how do you miss a war as a leader even if it's primarily being fought on a far away island, but it is the reason that the war went on for as long as it did; if the Shogun herself fought the battle it would likely be over in a week at most just due to her general powerlevel being so high. 4:35 - when the Fatui's crimes are brought to light they actually are kicked out of Inazuma. You see this in Kokomi's story quest; they're mad about it and even want to avenge Signora (who signed up for her own death when she accepted the duel). And the Shogun didn't know the extent of what the Fatui were doing, just that they were there and were at least partially the ones who suggested the VHD. The Fatui are active in every nation, like let's not pretend that Zhongli didn't actively conspire with them in the Liyue Archon Quest. 5:00 - First off, this is out of order; the peoples' ambitions only come after the dialogue is had and Yae Miko appears. Second off, what you say isn't what's said in the game; you can see here (genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/The_Omnipresent_God) that all that is told to Ei is that the Fatui deceived the Shogun, nothing about the suffering or anything else going on outside of a vague "but it's damaging". Ei herself even replies saying she doesn't actually know what's going on outside, only things "related to eternity", which is so vague that it could mean any number of things. Yes she mentions people dying for their ambitions but this could mean any number of things, including people who died in the Calamity 500 years ago. It's overall too vague to say definitively how much she knew, but considering her actions after the quest (kicking out the Fatui, arresting the corrupt commission heads, pushing for peace talks) I'm pretty confident in saying it isn't as much as she thought. 6:05 - yes it is mentioned in the game which I'll touch on in a second, but honestly this idea of ignoring the lore doesn't sit right with me. As much as I also don't like Genshin's habit of putting important character stuff in obscure item descriptions and videos, they're still part of the story and thus need to be considered. And on the topic of Raiden's story as a whole, her lore actually is expanded on in game and thus ignoring it is unfair; the teaser you reference was released before 2.1, and is elaborated on with a much more in depth cinematic in 2.1's climax (one of the few good parts of 2.1's ending if I'm being honest). 1/2
2/2 7:00 - the traveller is the one who challenged Ei. Ei just said "Fine, then please enlighten me". She didn't threaten the traveller's life. There's never any conditions made either; Ei absolishes it in the end in accordance with the will of the people since her whole thing is communicating best through battle. 7:20 - I mean what were you expecting, a bureaucratic meeting about abolishing it? This isn't even the most egregious offscreen thing in Genshin, in fact it's probably not even in the top 15. 7:45 - chronologically the first story quest takes place a good deal after the Archon Quest. I agree it can be jarring but this isn't exactly a writing flaw in and of itself as much as it is a game design flaw. 8:30 - I hate to be defending her first story quest since I was as dissapointed with it as many were, but people were absolutely nervous around her; you see it in all sorts of ways, and the dango milk guy even goes "Huh she's nicer than I was expecting" once he actually talks to her a bit. It's important to note that the VHD and Sakoku decrees were both very recent; for thousands of years before (including most of the time the Shogun puppet was ruling as far as we know) there was no real incident or cause of concern. Would I like to have seen more too? Absolutely, but this statement isn't exactly true. 9:35 - it actually is acknowledged in her second story quest. Ei herself goes into detail about how her perspective was wrong, how it caused damage, how it dishonored the people who had faith in her, and how she now needs to find a new path and fully realize what Makoto was trying to teach her. Would I like other characters to bring it up? Again sure, but it is acknowledged in some way, so this statement isn't really correct. 10:00 - I completely agree these people are annoying, but you have to understand these people exist for nearly any antagonist in existence, especially ones with any amount of moral ambiguity. I just had a conversation with someone a few weeks ago who insisted up and down that Makishima Shogo from Psyho-Pass really didn't do anything that bad and was "the real hero", and the stuff he did makes the Vision Hunt Decree look like the Shogun walked around giving everyone free ice cream. Everyone experiences media differently, and I don't think it's fair to label people "dictator sympathizers" in this case when there's lots of cases of this phenomenon in media. If your favorite characters are villains like you claim then you should be well-acquainted with this. 10:34 - sure, I can tell you that. The Heavenly Principles are explained in the Sumeru Archon Quest to be the enforcers of Celestia's will. The unknown god we see at the start of the game is stated to be a part of the Heavenly Principles. Since this is stated in an Archon Quest you can't even really use the argument of "it's in obscure text" either. 10:53 - it is addressed in the story. Ei in the 2.1 Archon Quest says that she felt compelled to go into stasis because she saw what happened to Khaenri'ah, a nation that got deleted out of existence by the higher powers of the world for the crime of striving forward. That calamity also nearly took Inazuma out at the same time while it was at it through sheer residual damage, and if it wasn't for Ei the nation would probably have been destroyed. So yeah, she was so traumatized and distraight that she thought keeping the nation the same forever would prevent Celestia from having another tantrum and destroying Inazuma like what happened there, and thought individual ambition was a threat to that stasis hence why she didn't get involved in the VHD. Misguided, absolutely, but it is explained in the story. 11:09 - this whole section on her second story quest is kind of baffling to me and what made me make this post. It honestly feels like you never actually did the second story quest and just read a cliff's notes on what happened and made assumptions from there, or if you did you skipped through the dialogue while paying zero attention. Again, I know everyone experiences media differently, but I'm forced to believe one of the two because I don't see how you could come to the conclusions you did without one of these being true. I'm going to break these points down one at a time using proof from the story quest itself to refute it (you can find every piece of dialogue I mention here; genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Transient_Dreams). "She destroys the puppet" - the Shogun is not destroyed in the second story quest. As you can see, the Shogun fine in the end; "Raiden Shogun: I understand. I shall become your shadow, just as you were once Makoto's shadow. The duties I perform will not change. But as a warrior, I look forward to the chance to fight like this again in the future." "She repeats the same mistake again" - I mean if you want to get extremely nitpicky then yes, she's isolating herself again, but part of Ei's character is being a blockhead who runs into things. I don't see how it's poor writing for a character to act true to her character. She's doing this because she sees no other way of making the Shogun stand down; "Ei: If I don't do this, the Shogun's rules can never change, and Inazuma can never move forward. This is my duty. No matter how long this battle may last, months, years, centuries... And no matter how many times we must fight, I will defeat her." "She fought because the Shogun disrespected her and hurt her feelings" - ignoring that the above quote disproves this (she's fighting so the Shogun won't stand in the way of progress), Ei isn't even the one who wanted this fight, the Shogun was and was the one who called her to it; "Ei: The discomfort I was experiencing earlier was caused by the Shogun rejecting my continued use of her body. As she indicates, once I started entertaining the idea of change, I became hostile in her eyes." "Ei: No need. "She" is calling me. The time has come. Can you help me walk, (Traveler)? I need to go to the cave below the Grand Narukami Shrine." "Raiden Shogun: This body is an assistant to the one within. But it is also the guardian of the rules. Should the one within wish to stray from the rules, this body shall stand in her way." "She didn't care what happened to Inazuma in the mean time" - there is an entire conversation before the traveller is kicked out of the dimenion dedicated to this, where Ei says that she is trusting humanity to find their way and Miko is in charge of guiding them until this is over; "Ei: Five hundred years ago, humanity proved their strength in battle. Here in the present, they rely on their ambition to challenge wayward practices, tear them out like the diseased wood of an old sakura tree, so that new, healthy branches might spring to life in their place. It is about time that I learned to trust them." "Ei: I understand that. But if the dreams of which Makoto spoke are true eternity, a short moment for which the Shogun does not exist is nothing to fear. I fight for the everlasting future of Inazuma. However long the battle may last, it is but a drop in the ocean of eternity. I vow to the subjects of Inazuma that I shall one day return. This is my oath. Please be my witness. During my absence, I place everything in Miko's hands." "She gets bailed out by the traveller and Yae Miko again" - this is the shadier one since it's kind of handled strangely in the quest as well, but as far as we see the main driver here is Ei, the gameplay reflects this in the fact that you can only use Ei in the battle and the traveller is just there to witness the end of this fight; "Ei: Final duel? So you're finally willing to... Stand back, Traveler. I'm going to be the start of something new." At most I think Ei was just moved by the others' concern for her that they would come back to try and save her, but there's nothing really suggesting that Ei wouldn't have been fine on her own. Anyways, that's my piece. My apologies for the TL;DR. You seem like a fine guy and I like your videos going through them, but this one was really, REALLY off the mark. Again, if you just wanted to meme and dunk on Raiden then sure, by all means have fun, there's lots to criticize, but this video was just a really big miss if it's meant to be serious in any way.
@@revivemefellas9637 Everything I said is in the story. Only a bit of my post is interpretive, most of it is directly backed up with text from the archon quest and story quests.
if she had a character arc after the inazuma plot where she was condemned by her people in a similar way to furina that wouldve been insane. from THERE i think she couldve started bettering herself instead of just having "always" been a "good" person ; this is coming from someone who has actively hated her and mikos character ever since the release of the inazuma archon quests too. seeing her stroll about inazuma in her character story with her people looking up to her in awe and reverie, greeting her politely, ... mihoyo traded what could have been character redemption for a date between ei and the traveller.
Because apparently mihoyo has to make even the hot war criminals (cough cough childe) and make them sympathetic instead of making them straight up villains who suffer consequences
(The first paragraph is the TLDR) The worst part about her story to me is that SHE IS TREATED LIKE A REDEEMED CHARACTER WITHOUT A REDEMPTION ARC. I don't hate evil characters, I hate poorly written characters, especially poorly written evil characters. And Raiden Shogun, is the text book definition of a "reformed villain" but there is a major issue with her stories. The issue being: There are no consequences for her bad actions. After being proven wrong by a random stranger, she just said she changed her mind and voila, she is now forgiven, not only by her people, but also by the majority of the community. Back then I felt like I was living in a fever dream because it was ridiculously absurd how quickly Raiden got away with it. I seriously thought Mihoyo was saving the redemption arc for her story quests. And I was right, there was an attempt to redeemed her in these 2 story quests, but I cant say it was an honest attempt. Her first story quest was not a redemption arc at all, it was about proving to her that she was stupid and wrong. The way her people saw her had not changed, the way she saw her ideal version of "eternity" barely changed. Her second quest was a bit better. The lore dump aside, Raiden actually acknoledged that she was wrong and promised to be better. She wanted to change for the better, not just herself but also her nation. But wait. Do you feel like Mihoyo is skipping something? That's right. WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES FOR EVERY BAD THINGS SHE DID? Did they seriously think she deserves every good thing in this world just because she wants to be better now? I know I sounded like a dick after that sentence but I this really makes Raiden less of an interesting character. It is extremely unrealistic for people like her, who not only allowed but also commited horrendous crimes to be forgiven this easily. She has never proven to her people that she is an reliable leader to lean onto after abolishing the decree. And her people just took her word for it, surely she would never do that again. On a side note, I really wish we can have an extra story quest about the politics of Inazuma before and after the decree. It would be so interesting to explore how much an Archon's decision can influence the decisions of other commissions. Having an Archon is like having Superman in your country, which is terrifying if it happens in real life. A being that has the capabilities to wipe out nations, who operates mostly based on their moralities (and sometime their mood) has ascended to declare that she is now your god. She swears she would only do good but can she keep that promise for an eternity like she said? Would her way of doing "good" clash with our boundaries of moralities? Now that she had commited horrendous crime, should we put his trust in her again, or should we just take matters into our own hand, like the Sumerian scholars did? It is some interesting idead I think about time to time.
Yep. It just shows that Mihoyo sucks at writing meaningful characters and giving them good character development. Those two story quests of her barely do anything to change that.
@@phoenyan2087 He does, which is extremely baffling. Venti and Zhongli (including Nahida) are written WELL, unlike that pathetic excuse that is Raiden. This shows to me that Mihoyo can actually write good (as in well written) characters, they're just too damn lazy and greedy to do so. Inazuma and every character from it are the lowest point in Genshin, and the storytelling and dialogue are already complete GARBAGE to begin with. Not to mention the reverse powercreep, shitty interview that states no meaningful end game content, DEHYA, and the two pathetic anniversaries.
@@phoenyan2087As I see it this is a sex thing, the male characters and the female characters have a contracting writing some of the guy characters (like Albado) feels like Mihoyo want to tell a story with mystery, wonder, a flowing narrative However with the female characters there’s a status quo, Monstant has a tired workaholic that can’t take care of themselves Jean, now this wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for having two additional tired workaholic who can’t take care of themselves Ganyu and Keqing This wouldn’t be a nagging issue for me if Ganyu and Keqing were different then Jean, cuz, you, know all 3 are different people with their own history and priorities
I remember seeing a content creator do a poll where people got to vote on their most liked and most disliked/hated Genshin characters. perhaps unsurprisingly, Raiden scored spots in the top 10 for both lists (as did Wanderer). it goes to show that plenty of people were given a highly negative impression of the Raiden Shogun (or Ei?) and it caused lasting damage. usually you could argue other factors make a character hated, but she's meta, a hot lady and pulls a sword out of her booba.... it's gotta be the damning plot and its terrible execution
This video is the absolute true... I'm really glad that everyone in the fandom thinks Inazuma is Genshin's lowest point. And in an interview the developers confessed that Ei was the character that had the most changes and.... Yes, indeed, I can see that. That's why there are so many inconsistencies in it. The reason why Inazuma people don't say anything is out of fear, as we saw at the TCG event. But what bothered me was that Ei was surprised by that.... And that's insulting. She ruined lives AND KNEW IT, it wasn't the Fatuis fault, she knew what they were doing and chose to ignore it. And she hasn't paid half the consequences of her actions. Even Katsurabe from Kazuha's mission, had a better redemption arc. Scaramouche got a better treatment even! I really think she's the writers' pet and it's a shame that just has the worst writing because of the waifu factor.
Yeah, that's pathetic and insulting to your intelligence. Trying to sell her via booba sword is stupid and pathetic. Ei needs to pay fully for her actions.
No, in fact, Ei NEEDS to pay for all of her actions with interest stacked on it. All those simps are just brainless monkeys with no critical thinking skills. There's a reason why the other three Archons are far better than her, not just in superior character and story writing, but likeability as well. This is just a huge example on how to NOT write a character and their story. It's pretty goddamn embarrassing that this was what Mihoyo came up with.
Im actually glad that there is at least another person who also thought that she was horribly written and thats also the reason why I skipped every of her banners. I was actually excited for her because some if my friends hyped her really up but then I was just left with dissapointment so I decided to just save up for Nahida (and went to C2 because I frigging loved everything about her)
Tbh, I am shocked each time I am thinking about Inazuma's quest. I mean the archon made her people suffer af and she litteraly can walk peacefully inside the city without any consequences of what she did while still being the ruler. If Genshin wasn't as "friendly" as it is, I'd expect Inazuma's people throwing rocks at her while screaming : "GET OUT !!!"
Pretty much everyone throwing rocks would be executed lmao. it would be better if they were seeking a way to kill a god, that would've been an interesting conflict in the story.
Ah yes, let's throw rocks at a god. That will definitely end well. Plus most of what happened didn't affect the normal life in Inazuma. Only the merchants and vision holders were the ones who suffered.
She's their god that they worship, a lot of Narukami residents don't really care about the Vision Hunt Decree and believe she's just doing what's best for Inazuma and go along with it. Even the people who hate the policies still respect the shogun. It's just how the world in Genshin works
I mean if Jeasus came to earth and acted like a dictator, but suddenly he would change and be like "oopsie daisy my bad guys" every Christian would accept him without any second thought
Im so upset that theres no way that she'd ever be fixed also. Like her story would require a whole rewriting of the inazuma archon quest and- i definitely dont think theyll do that
@@ozzcoremidmx8287 And it's pathetic and greedy of Mihoyo to not even think of trying to fix her and Inazuma's bad stories. Shows how lazy they are to not even bother TRYING to fix it.
Can you make more of these? Maybe about our grand-strategist Kokomi? Kidding, I enjoy your videos, I like controversy takes, it sets new impulses to think about and I agree 100% with your take on the Raiden Shogun and I think most people see the point you made here
This might be because I’m a Kokomi main, but I feel like her role in the story was severely underutilized and tremendously overshadowed by Yae Miko beyond justification.
@@zSTALKn Trust me, the writers did her so dirty, she has so much potential, but it never got addressed so far. It just bugs me that it is commonly accepted that she is this insane genius strategist, when the writers want to force her into the overworked waifu trope instead
Kokomi the great strategist accepting fake visions from whoever it is resulting in those killing her soldiers by draining their life... Teppei, never forget.
finally, this gets talked about! i always tell my friends that i will never pull for raiden because of this. and i will never come to like her... seriously, after treating her people like that, she gets to walk around lovey dovey eating dango with the traveller? yeah no...
Hey Soul you legitimately forgot to mention that she was created as a “mommy” sort of “step on me character”, but in her character quest she also serves the role of a perfect, innocent, naive and dumb little girl, who doesn’t know what a photograph is. 🥺🤣🤣🤣🙌🏼❤ She’s was created to be every men’s w*t dream. 🙄 This infuriates me the most probably.
I can't even express the disappointment I felt after playing through the Inazuma quest. You go there expecting the best lore in game, because why wouldn't you? Everyone who plays genshin loves Raiden, everyone says how op she is and how you should pull for her. Surely, SURELY her story must be a banger as well right? RIGHT? And then you get to Inazuma, where after getting through all the character quests you get to the archon quest finale which feels like: - Hey Ei, stop it girl c'mon. - Yea, you're right ok lol. Thankfully, Sumeru made me forget that part. Hopefully Fontaine is good.
What really pains me, is the fact that I liked how they went with wanderer's redemption arc, self sacrifice, then going on throwing the past as a new person, that was really good. But ei feels like more of a sudden, there was no build up, no redeeming qualities, and the worst part is that ei herself acknowledged that she did some missed up shit yet she continued which means she knows that she's out of the redeeming zone, yet somehow everybody especially kazuha just forgot what she did. I mentioned wanderer and nahida here to address the issue, it's not like hoyoverse doesn't know how to write a character, which makes it even worse, to this day one of my favorite story quests is venti's, it shows how he's still struggling after all these years which makes me respect him even more, and that's right his story quest released with the game so that means they know how to treat a character
Yeah, it's pathetic to see Mihoyo just go shit's creek with Inazuma and Raiden's character and story writing. The writing is so poor and shitty there that it hurts.
@@rickynguyen5108 it almost feels intensional against inazuma, mondstad, liyue, sumeru and hopefully fountain all have a great written characters, inazuma has few but the archon quests didn't help them either shine or get fleshed out which is sad.
@@itsok-kw5jt Yeah, and additionally, none of the things in the Inazuma Archon Quest are ever acknowledged or mentioned whatsoever, which sucks. Don't you think so? Little of the Inazuma characters had barely, if any, good writing to them.
@@rickynguyen5108 yeah I think this is the cause of the archon quest being as irrelevant as hell, tbh nahida's second quest alone has better writing, and lore imo.
@@itsok-kw5jt Yeah, the Inazuma Archon Quest, and Raiden's two Story Quests (her first quest (late 2021, early-September) and second quest (early 2022, mid-February), and they BARELY did anything to alleviate the worse aspects of the Inazuma Archon Quest, they only served to make them WORSE), is irrelevant as fuck, and just mentioning it makes me bitter due to how shitty the writing and storytelling on it were. The other three Archons have far better writing and storytelling to them than the entire Inazuma Archon Quest and Raiden's two Story Quests. How pathetic and outright embarrassing. Do you think Fontaine will do better than that pisspoor Inazuma? Fuck, say what you will about Lasengle and FGO, but that has a far superior story than what Inazuma cooked up.
Everything said is unfortunately 100% true. I genuinely would've loved to have a bad person as a playable character but just like you said here I think they thought that she wouldnt sell well even tho I'm pretty sure people would've liked her more that way. I just hope they keep Arlechinno and Dottore as evil and don't try to redeem them because tbh it's kinda hard to redeem a manipulative child groomer and a mad scientist who uses children as subjects.
It's not only Raiden, but the entire Inazuma for me was complete dogshit, nice views and islands but Inazuma was a total shit in terms of lore and characters, the only thing from Inazuma I truly enjoyed and I wanted more was Enkanomiya, my god, it was 10/10
@@snezhnayanpenguin4671 Yep, he was cool guy, wish he was playable. Hah, its quite often when those side characters are more interesting/real than playable ones.
Raiden Shogun could've been an amazing villain for Inazuma and be the first proper villainous archon. But the way the writers wrote her was so.. sooooo badly executed. Also, since Soul wasn't able to include what she did to Kujou Sara and Scaramouche, allow me to be the one to do the work for him. For Kujou Sara, we have to go all the way back before when there were two archons for Inazuma: Makoto, the one in charge of protecting her people, and Raiden, the sword whose job was to kill anyone that threatens Makoto's life. One day, the two archons came across an injured tengu that was on the verge of death. Who was the tengu? Kujou Sara. Now what did the archon sisters do, exactly? Raiden... did nothing. Meanwhile, Makoto saved the Sara from the brink of death, and out of sheer gratitude she vowed to be in service of Makoto because she felt like she had to after her life was saved by the archon herself. Now why is she loyal to Raiden then? Well Sara didn't know that there were two archons, so when Makoto died and Raiden took her place, Sara didn't know that the one who saved her had died. So, when Raiden started acting like a dictator Sara followed her because she still thinks it's Makoto and still feels in debt to her even though Makoto had died long ago. She's basically blindly following the orders of someone who was willing to LEAVE HER TO DIE because she thought Raiden was the one who saved her. Now for Scaramouche which I don't know much of because I quit Genshin midway through Inazuma and the internet didn't give me much information but basically in an attempt to create a puppet in resemblance of her sister, she ended up making Scaramouche. What did she do to him? Tossing him aside, essentially abandoning him upon his creation, hence why we had Scaramouche the way he was before he erased himself from existence during the Sumeru arc. Imagine being abandoned by the person that gave you life, wouldn't you feel betrayed too? So yeah, TLDR Raiden is a terribly written character and the fact that she hasn't atoned for her actions does not make her "redemption arc" any better, especially considering what she did to countless people including Sara and Scara. Sorry for the long comment if you stuck around to read the whole damn thing, you're a trooper.
This just further shows that she's terribly-written, and the entire Inazuma Archon Quest and her two Story Quests are crap in writing. It's embarrassing.
Did you invent the story of Sara or something?💀 I have never read anything like that ever before. I mean, this is another level of fanfiction. All I read is that Yae Miko had a hand on her joining the Kujou Clan. She also comes to serve the Shogun because she received a Vision that she thought the God gave her. She didn't even serve Makoto. The only Tengu that served during the time Makoto was alive is Sasayuri, the old friend who died in the war against Orobashi.
Just want to inform you that this video's take about Ei's second story quest is blatantly wrong and terribly biased. She finally managed to get proper character development during her 2nd story quest.
Even if we forget the harm she has canonically done to individuals, Raiden was still the sole reason for the civil war that we were shown has devastated Inazuma and caused massive sensless losses on both sides. Even Gorou's hangout acknowledges it... Feels weird that the main story quests do not.
Okay I agree with you on most points, but I'm at a loss about her fighting the Puppet. She HAD to fight the Puppet to assert control over it, it had nothing to do with her feelings being hurt. The Puppet was created with certain protocols that prevented Ei from making decisions that her old self would disapprove of unless she proved her point via battle, nevermind that the Storm that threatened Inuzuma was a direct cause of the Puppet malfunctioning due to Ei's change in character and ideals. Also the Heavenly Principles are mentioned directly by Nahida, it's a representative from Celestia that oversees Teyvat, we actually saw her literally at the beginning of the game: the Unknown God. But I see your point and do agree that Ei definitely needed more time, but she DID fight the Puppet for 5,000 years as she directly stated, so I'll cut her some slack since if she fought for that long, she's definitely changed
did you like read another story quest because everyone with a brain knows that she fought the puppet because she litterally disrespected her she never fought because she "cared" about her ppl like yall raiden simps claims for her to be
@@chadikhr7258 No, I didn't. This shows that you're just going with the "Raiden Simp" train and not actually listening. The entire purpose of Ei fighting the Puppet, was for control. Ei designed it to act autonomously without her input to carry out her orders and it had protocols in place to prevent Ei from acting against her own previous wishes, which in the 2nd story quest was the reason why the Storm that was over the sea blocking access to Inazuma was getting closer to the nation itself, the Puppet was acting within it's parameters and Ei HAD to prove her resolve via combat in order for the Puppet to allow Ei control over their shared body.(which was why she fought it continuously for 5,000 years) Again, if you don't like Ei, just say that you don't like her, I don't even have her so the "Simp" idea doesn't apply to me, her character is good because it shows how ignorance and negligence applies to even Gods, despite their best intentions
@@chadikhr7258 Did you read another story quest? Because nothing in the text supports that claim. I'm not even a Raiden simp but I can call BS on that as a whole.
Omg finally. I hate Raiden and people always ask me "why." Like bro even if you're skipping through the story did we miss the part where she genocided her nation's own people, stole people's visions, refuses to stop meditating in her plane even though her soul is deteriorating anyway (lol erosion), we never even see any formal apology from her and even less remorse.
She literally fought the shogun for 500 years straight non stop just to change the rules so inazuma doesnt go back to how it was and its the peoples fault for forgiving her even when she was a dictator and had the sakoku decree they still worshipped her prayed to her unlike the ones in the resistance
@@orangenade3707 😂it's the people's fault. Let's look on antiquated Japan, then. There's no mention of an emperor in Inazuma, but in Japan an emperor was worshiped as a literal god, being the direct offspring of 'Amaterasu,' who is the sun goddess and highest deity in shintoism. It's fair to say that Raiden is both the emperor and shogun of Inazuma because no emperor is mentioned. Therefore criticizing her would literally warrant the death sentence. Hell even shoguns would execute peasants who criticized them even though they weren't divine figures. That said there are cases of the emperor also being the shogun but these roles are normally separate. The point is, they couldn't criticize Raiden if they wanted to.
@@escapetherace1943 i didnt word what i was saying properly what u just said literally proves that they cant do anything to get rid of raiden so it makes perfect sense of why she is forgiven so easily since the people are unable to do anything to oppose an archon so the most they can do is hope the rules are changed which they are so its dumb to say that “raiden was forgiven so easily shes a bad character for that reason” bc its literally the only thing the people can do A formal apology wont fix any of the suffering she caused she has to take action to solve the problems she has to get rid of the decrees which she did and make sure they dont come back and she had to fight the shogun for 500 years straight bc she was still pursuing eternity so she did show remorse obv nothing can change what terrible things she did but saying she didnt show remorse isnt true
I was with you until you started talking about her second story quest. There were a few comments before then that were questionable but that entire section just makes me wonder how well you actually remember the events of the story. It was never about the Shogun "disrespecting" her, it was the duality of Ei trying to change Inazuma and move forward, and the Shogun adhering to the old ideas of "stasis" trying to stop her. Raiden was never intended to be an "evil" character, that's just your perspective. The way you word things in this video makes it sound like she was just doing what she did for no reason which is not at all the case. They moreso tried to create a morally gray character with good intentions but dropped the ball. That flawed execution is worth critiquing, but the perspective of "she's SUPPOSED to be evil so trying to flesh out or redeem her is bad writing" is just extremely weird and fallacious. I agree Ei was horribly written in the Archon Quest, it was possibly the most unflattering first impression imaginable and made her look incompetent at best. But to answer your question of why people like her as a character, it's because of her actual character and development outside of that, which is why people feel that she has more to her than that section of shitty writing and is why she has so many fans. I'm sure her looks play into her popularity too but you could say that about literally any character; do you think other popular Genshin characters like Zhongli or Hu Tao would be as popular as they are if they weren't attractive? And I'm typing this as you go on a tirade about how "Everyone who defends her is a simp!". Sure, whatever.
I got her before finishing the Inazuma Archon questline and she became one of my favorite characters in terms of gameplay and design. But her story left me really disappointing. A lot of plot points weren't tied and she didn't show any sign of regret for her actions. I also hate how she treated Wanderer. I hope her story quest improves her character , as I haven't played it yet.
They made a tyrannical warlord and then said she's actualy a fanfic reading weeb, literally mentally 12, so it's okay and everyone is friends now. I was bummed by her character assassination, considering Raiden in both GGZ and Honkai always had a clear character arc, they just spat in the face of one of the company's pillars. Sure, she isn't that important in Genshin, but she's still a Raiden expy and should at least deserve some decent treatment. You can easily write a redemption story for her, but it shouldnt've happened so quickly. Sara could've had a character arc, having realized Ei is full of shit and proceeds to aid the Traveller instead of being a fanatic lesbian all the time (now, obviously Inazuma plot happened so long ago, so I don't remember 90% of it, but I think she did "help" us, but only bc one of the Kujou leader for allied with Fatui, not bc Ei was wrong). And the whole thing about "it was actually the puppet, Ei is a good person and she was immersed in her eternity fantasy so she didn't do it" just takes away from the gravity of it all. Accountability where? Ei should've stepped down from her seat as a ruler, as she neglected and ruined her country for nothing, which could've led to Sara taking her place, as Ei sees her errors and Sara development would've been a direct result of Inazuma's finale. That or idk, a some other represantative from one of the Houses. And Yae Miko just giving away Ei's gnosis in exchange for our lives is a bit on the nose. Surely Scara isn't stronger than Yae, to force her to trade, even if Ei didn't want the gnocis after Makoto's death?
The first story quest literally showed her not being a fanfic reading weeb by not understanding what Light Novels were about to being with, so you are already wrong in your first sentence.
Thank you! I felt like I was taking crazy pills during her archon quest! People DIED because of her actions, and this went on for years! And no one HATES her?! No one is terrified of her?! I’m just supposed to accept that she was too dumb and traumatized and stubborn to know she was ruining lives en masses? Oh wait, she can’t cook, so that makes her adorable and relatable! Nevermind!
They are still terrified of her, but acted none about it. Compare that to Decarabian, Mondstadt's former god. They are able to usurp him from his throne because of his tyranny. I expected Raiden's SQ to make people completely critical of her, but nope.
Yes! 100 times yes! She makes a whole country suffer because of her own inability to process loss. Takes peoples hopes and will to live away and starts a civil war when someone tries to stop us. She even kills people and tries to kill us multiple times. (And yes, some of this was done by the puppet but Ei programmed her.) She only cares about her own pain and ignores everything. Raiden first story quest was almost grotesque. “Tihihi, dango milk.” “Oh I cannot understand the concept of pictures. Is that me? Is that someone else? Oh the confusion” The second story was better and mended things a little. She battles her puppet and the whole notion of eternity. It’s like a test if eternity or change wins. Only glimmer of reaction was when Kazuha didn’t want to go speak with Raiden during the test of courage event. Even that was not to disturb our meeting. She killed his best friend. Kazuha was the only thing stopping Raiden from killing us too. Raiden deserved better storytelling. Either let her be the uncaring cruel force of nature that does whatever they please. Or give her proper redemption arc if they want to clean her up like Scara. At least some regret and growth. But guess if you pull a sword from your boobs all is forgiven :)
It doesn't EXCUSE or JUSTIFY her actions one bit. Mihoyo really shit the bed with how they fucked up Raiden's storytelling and how they fucked up Inazuma's storytelling in general. Either have her be a cruel person who does whatever they please or give her a proper and wellwritten redemption arc like they did with Scaramouche. Liking someone for pulling a sword out of their boobs is a stupidass excuse to even try to justify her actions.
It's funny how Scaramouche apparently has done worse than her in number of crime, but in a way....Scara's crimes and sins trace all the way back to Ei. The other changes in a well-executed way, the other did not. And yet many simp for her. That explains how narcissists are able to manipulate ppl so well, because their the same type of morons that always fell for their ploys and pretty faces.
As much as I agree with this video, 11:24 is simply incorrect. The Shogun puppet forced her into the duel by taking control of the body because it wanted to make sure Raiden hadn't been subject to erosion. If Raiden didn't fight that duel and the puppet won, it would re-instate all the previous laws that you spent so long un-doing. That fight meant a lot more than it being a case of respect. In a way, you could say that her being forced into fighting the Shogun for 500 years (For her, not Teyvat and the Traveler) is her punishment for her actions. But that is narratively weak, her people absolutely shouldn't have been as calm as they were with her
YESSS, I also agree that Raiden Shogun is soooo badly written but that part in the OG's vid is very misleading and incorrect. Other than that, the Archon Quest's pacing is frickin rushed and Ei's redemption quest didn't really feel impactful at all for the fact that she wasn't really held accountable for all the misdeeds she's done in the first place. Her overall character writing just really sucks. It's so unfair 'cuz most of Sumeru's story writing is so done well that you can't help compare it to that of Inazuma's. I hope that in the anime adaptation, they fix Inazuma's story arc 'cuz it has so much potential and unfortunately it's forever butchered in the game.
I agree with you that she is badly written but there is so much here that makes me feel like you don't remember a lot of the events that transpired. Again you're 100% right that she didn't have to face any consequences because none of it was acknowledged which is dumb as fuck. However for instance the stuff you said in regards to her reasoning for fighting the puppet in the second story quest had me incredulous though. That isn't even the only thing I'm unsure of the accuracy of that you mentioned but it's one of the biggest ones I noticed. In conclusion yes you are right she's the worst written character but some of the stuff you mentioned here just didn't seem accurate.
Also he did the character breakdown with considering any lore so there's that. Saying that raiden did all the evil deeds willingly bcoz she wanted to is quite wrong, all she had ever done was stay in the shadow of her sister and fight on the battlefield. Expecting someone like that to know how to run a country is a bit too much. Also it didn't help that jst after she witnessed how Khaenri'ah was detroyed by the heavenly principles for progressing too much and clearly wanted to protect her country from heading in the same direction, were her methods wrong? YES! But that's coz nobody even taught her the most basic human qualities that everyone else knew. Her whole idea of eternity meaning stasis was wrongly input in the puppet and her believing in what the puppet was doing was right for preserving eternity made her not do anything until the traveller appeared. Also her story quest 2 shows that she is clearly on the side of the people and on a much better and reformed path than the one she took so that fact that she had no development is completely incorrect. I usually agree with Soul's takes on the game but idk how he misunderstood so many things in this case. So yes her character writing is very rushed, and the entire Inazuma arc I think wasn't given enough time to be properly fleshed out. Idk why but there are a lot of things that I think Soul has misunderstood in this video and even tho I usually agree with his takes I can't agree with some of the reasoning that he gives in this video. And why the people forgave her so easily, well idrk, but I saw a comment which I think can explain some of it. The people of Inazuma loved makoto bcoz of how benevolent and they never knew that there were two shoguns and that makoto had died, so they considered Ei as Makoto and thought that what she was doing was probably good for the nation(most of the populus, not all) and maybe that's why they also forgave her actions a bit too easily coz in their view their archon who had run the country properly for centuries was facing problems that she has now resolved.
@@adrishchatterjee8711 There's also again the fact that most people weren't even affected by the vision hunt decree so that could also play large part. Unfortunately they only mentioned this a couple of time rather than really showing it well so I wouldn't be surprised if people forgot. The only time younsee normal people even remotely involved is people who are already apart of the resistance after all.
I'd say after her second story quest she's not the worst written character (that title among the playables is probably Kokomi at this point which is tragic cause I actually like her) but that quest had to borderline retcon her personality to make it happen and REALLY hammer in that she's trying to change in like every line of dialogue to where it almost got repetitive Shows how deep the hole they dug themselves into with her was lol, but it seemed to work for most people so who am I to judge I guess
@@Riftmansal Kokomi is a sad case to think about; though I did like the dialogue the traveler has with her during that last tcg event. I'm referring to when she talks about not being able to see Watatsumi Island from Ritou(I think it was), I do wish they'd give more focus to that plot line of the aftermath of the war and how much the after effects are still affecting everyone instead of development like that being in events.
I agree, I think her story quest 2 should have been the archon quest interlude along with the ending showing how the conditions change after the war ends. Her story quest 1 however was......yea they need to change that a lot.
The only one who acknowledged was the resistance soldier in Watatsumi Island in Kokomi's Story Quest. He couldn't move on right away because he was thinking of his friends who died in the war made by Raiden.
I just got to inazuma as a player who started when the game came out. I've been dreading this story arch. I think they greatly covered the culture and closeness of quite a few NPCs but idk how some players just straight simp for her. Especially when most of the islands are uninhabitable because of her. 💀
I believe you are right in the case of Raiden's character. From a human pov, she is like an angsty teenager who possessed too much power for her own good. She only cares about her eternity and have no human regards for the people of Inazuma. That being said, I think she being who she is is mostly attributed to because she is literally a God. And when you look at her from the pov of a God, suddenly her actions make sense. Human lives become expandable as long as her principle of eternity is maintained. After the Inazuma quest, her stubborn personality is still the same. The only thing that changed in her willingness to give a little more liberty to the people of Inazuma. As for why the people and the game have done very little in addressing Raiden's evil deeds, it does irk me. But once again, if we look from the pov of the Inazuma people, only a few knows Ei and Makoto are 2 separate beings. As far as the public are aware, there has always only been one single God. And that God (Makoto) was described as an incredibly wise and just ruler that Inazuma under her 1,500 years of governance, the humans and youkai were living together peacefully. So despite all the horrible things the present God (Raiden Ei) has done, the people are still largely in awe of her, because the legacy she inherits is very real; without this God, Inazuma would not be what she is today. Their culture, arts, and sword techniques were all origin and very ingrain of this God. So from their pov, Raiden was never always evil. From their pov, she is this incredibly awesome God they have always worshiped who one day just decided to be cruel to her people. Her actions confuse them, and when the sign of her finally turning over a new leaf comes (after Inazuma quest), it was enough of a redemption to them. Welp, sorry for the long rant. Have a good day, everyone.
My brother in christ you are analysing a character you kinda do need to use that lore Bad person ≠ Bad writing And people forgiving her easily is not her bad writing that is bad writing of the inazuma story I love your content but what the fuck was this man
He even summarized her 2nd story quest in the most wrong way possible. Yes, I agree that Ei's mistakes are real and should be acknowledged. But her character development should be acknowledged too, to deny that is completely unfair.
holy shit, i have been waiting for someone to point this out, i noticed this from the start but everyone defends her. when she did nothing but take from the people she was meant to be protecting and even i the end she never even did any kind of public hearing to apologize to her own people. holy shit genshin did a great job at making me just hate her guts to the point where i refuse to roll for her no matter how meta she is.
Man now I regret skipping through most of the Inazuma archon quest, although I paid attention to most of Sumeru’s archon’s quest and loved it. I just listened to the 2nd story quest of Raiden and thought she was redeemed already when there was so much more to her that players didn’t comprehend. Good insight
the amount of time I get arguments from ei stand that "she didn't know" is crazy, its like they made up another version of the story in their heads and gaslights themselves into believing them
there is also the unjust murder of signora. people always bring up about her death that "oh she said loser would die so it's her arrogance." let's remember a couple things. 1: yes she was behind the delusions PARTIALLY, but so was scaramouche. 2: kazuha's friend challenged her to a duel, he's not considered selfish or arrogant is he? no, it's the RULES OF THE DUEL ITSELF. 3: signora wasn't given time to accept or deny the duel, as we've only ever seen Kazu's friend challenge the shogun herself, not be a referee. Shogun does not even give one moment for signora to accept/deny before she says "proceed." FINALLY. Signora is not really given a choice even if she were to say no. since she is a fatui harbinger, a top ranked military diplomat, the view of her inside the fatui itself, the political respect she has for being such high-ranked would be immediately shut down and she would be treated as a coward. this is the only reason she agrees to the duel, besides the shogun's pressure. then the raiden simps proceed to blame it ALL on the fatui when honestly it's 100% raiden's fault, and then we go on a date. hate it. even with the traveler, he's the arrogant one there. "for venti's gnosis." based off the timeline it was over a year ago, we had a lantern rite, and another was coming 3 updates later, a lantern right is the end of a genshin year, traveler held a grudge for something he didn't even know existed. next, "for the people of liyue you imperiled." last time I checked that was childe who did that, and signora just came at the end to take the gnosis. FINALLY. out of ALL THE HARBINGERS she's done the least amount of wrong. kicked venti, knocked out kujou sara, and is said to have mistreated her soldiers, but then again she gets on scaramouche's ass for doing that. meanwhile scara kills armies of soldiers in inazuma, gets free. childe tries to drown an entire city and gets free. signora is the MOST INNOCENT of the harbingers, and even could have sided with the traveler had the circumstances been different. she fought the abyss, which the traveler does. she witnessed khaenri'ah and is one of the only people not sworn or cursed to secrecy about it. she could have been our biggest lore helper, even more than dainsleif, if we were just able to get her on our side.
Bro relax Signora will get revived in Natlan. The traveler was well aware of what they were doing when they asked for the duel, and while you can try to deny it Signora still accepted the duel, she really was just arrogant and thought she would win.
@@HydraneousHadokenPent-Striker and that's the thing. she didn't accept the duel. traveler goes "i challenge you, to a duel before the throne" and before signora can say a word, the puppet goes "proceed." and then signora just re-iterates the rules of the duel, is kazuha's friend selfish for challenging ei? no, he got executed as well.
I never liked Ei from the start. Characters like Raiden, The Diamonds, Princess Bubblegum, etc being easily forgiven by the simp fandoms AND in story after commiting horrible acts is pretty gross. They're all bad people, yet people completely ignore them because "ThEY'Re QuIRkY!". Or they're just pretty/sexy/hot etc. People forget that Raiden stole peoples visions, representations of their wills, their ambitions, the reason they can do so much more in their lives. Objects that are pretty important to people, given during important events in their lives and people just don't remember or care about that. We literally save Thoma from getting his vision stolen, but nah, let's just forget that cuz Raiden pulls sword out of booba 😐she never even says sorry to the people still alive who lost their visions
I agree Raiden's writing was spotty at best, everyone's was in the 2.1 days, but you were extremely off about basically everything you said about the second story quest (the puppet didn't die, Ei didn't even initiate the fight let alone because she "was disrespected", and while she was touched by the traveler wanting to help ultimately she won on her own) The second quest does kind of fix her character, or at least pushes her to a much better direction; most people who I know who like the character came to like her only after it because of how it showed her growth so clearly it worked for a lot of people, hell I didn't like her either until then Idk this video makes some okay points but other parts seem kind of weird, saying "I don't care about lore or other text" is a bad take when you're making a character analysis video considering it's important to understanding basically all the characters in Genshin, and on your point of Raiden specifically it kind of doesn't work because her lore actually is brought up in the game as a focal point (end of the 2.1 AQ and her second story quest mainly) Also pls don't compare to real life dictators or insist if you support one you would support the other for superficial reasons, yeah people who say she did nothing wrong are annoying but like, there are lines too far in the other direction too; almost all of my friends who are Raiden fans have dealt with IRL oppression one way or the other, saying "you would like oppressors if they were hot" is kind of disrespectful to them over liking a fictional purple lady
To me also his take about the first story act is kinda off and doesn't take count on the fact that the most of the people in Inazuma city probably don't know the most of what happened, those that didn't have a vision were kinda neutral about the vision hunt decree so idk what they must knowledge about the Shogun that they don't already know and finally i think we played two different story quest because the people in the city are fearful and scared when they see Ei. in short, I think that the reactions of the people are well contextualized as opposed to the author of the video's point of view
@@francescodematteis6094 I do think the first story quest wasn't that good for reasons similar but different from what this guy claims, but yeah the analysis kind of leaves out a lot of stuff There's also claiming that her motivations for what she did are never brought up in the story, which isn't true; like she says outright in 2.1 in the lore dump after her boss fight that she did it because of what happened in Khaenri'ah, which got nuked off the face of the earth for "progressing too much" (supposedly, that's what said but the exact reasons for why Celestia nuked Khaenri'ah are still to be elaborated on)
While I'm quite neutral about Booba-sword lady, there is a reason why she is forgiven easily and it's equally as dumb. In the story, remember how they struggled to get people to fight the vision hunt decree because it affects so few people? Not only that, but many, AND I MEAN MANY! People of Inazuma took advantage of this and screwed people over like the foreigners and the people who lost their vision and subsequently lost their memories. I think what they were TRYING to do was show that Raiden realize what a fool she was and was willing to fight a carbon copy of herself for 500 FUCKING YEARS in some special realm to prove that she wanted to change and that is wasn't some flippant choice. Now after doing so, hearing that your Archon, would be willing to subjugate herself to such punishment for hurting her people like that would definitely make people reconsider their behavior after that which is why so many quests AFTER this even show characters trying to redeem themselves or their clan and not having judgement passed yet because she feels she is not worthy to pass judgement yet. The fuck-up here was the lack of showing us those facing the consequences of their actions alongside the Archon as well as people choosing to keep the Archon as their ruler. I think they thought that because some of the population was basically unaffected by the decrees that things would be fine and dandy, which is not true. So some back-and-forth would have been nice to help flesh that out more. Also to be fair: Despite knowing she DEFINITELY didn't understand what she was doing she THOUGHT she knew what she was doing, but that little "date" you go on, proves how outdated her views on things are and how much she fucked up and didn't understand, remember how cringe it was explaining Light novels to her was? But the WORST MOTHERFUCKER in this ENTIRE story is Yae Miko, FUCK THAT BITCH. You have the FUCKING EAR of the damn Shogun, yet at no point do you attempt to talk her down and show her why it's wrong and instead let some fucking random guy from out of town handle it? Jesus.... Yae Miko is the friend I would NEVER want to have, abandoning me when I need her guidance most, fuck that bitch, she's definitely responsible for how things got to this state. The true winners of the Inazuma story is: Kokomi, Yoimiya, and Beidou. Kokomi was FUCKING UP AGAINST THE DAMN SHOGUN AND WINNING!!!! Love that fish-girl Yoimiya SINGLE HANDEDLY BROUGHT HAPPINESS TO A NATION OF DEPRESSED MOTHERFUCKERS AND HELPED PEOPLE KEEP THEIR VISIONS WITH FAKES. Beidou FUCKING JOINS A FIGHT AGAINST THE VERY WOMAN WHO GAVE HER THE VISION SHE HAS LIKE "You guys wanna topple the shogun's horrible rule? Alright bet, where we dropping?" There was great characters that surely deserve more praise than the damn shogun and her fucking useless ass fox. As for how they could fix the story after all this time: maybe have a character that is the first to receive an electro vision after the Sakoku decree, and yet REFUSES to take it and arrives all the way in Inazuma to throw it in her face and we go on a lengthy quest to find out why and have her atone for what she did to people not just in her nation but outside her nation. Maybe even have the Fatui secretly hunt down the visions for the clans that were trying to appease the Shogun to gain trust and in doing so had possibly hurt that character in some way. Wishful thinking on my part though, great video, any chance you might talk about how you would change the story to make it better? Thanks for taking your time to read!
LITERALLY FINALLY SOMEONE TALKS ABOUT YAE MIKO The ending of the boss fight has to be the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen “Ei this isn’t you 🥺” “oh ok sure Miko damn sorry ig” You’re telling me Yae Miko COULDVE done something from before but didn’t?????
I think they handled Yae's character WAY better than Raiden. She is just as evil as Raiden, if not more (as you have stated) but at no point in the story do they even attempt to redeem her character in any shape or form. They frame her as this morally "grey" lying scheming fox who puts on a façade you can't see through. And from the way they wrote her especially in her story quest, you can probably assume that she has done far worse than what she was willing to admit without reading the lore. It's in my opinion a very realistic depiction of people in real life of her type. Like Soul also said, I don't hate evil characters. Despite seeing through Yae's antics immediately and knowing full well she is a terrible person, I still really like her and that goes to show that the framing of someone is make or break for the integrity of the writing for them.
I like this idea with the vision thing but isn’t the Celestia the one that gives out visions? The archons just lay the base idea of what makes someone get one but they aren’t the ones that give them.
@@Yoon_gibiased They could work that into the quest, but I think that in some way it is the archon since no new visions were given out for electro during the vision hunt decree... I'm not super sure though, the lore is kinda wonky there...
In case of second quest, it was more of the “cuz new worldview of Ei conflicts with original programming of Raiden, puppet tries to seize control and restore things to what they were - so we need to stop her” matter… This doesn’t excuse Ei’s writing, or redeems her in any bit, but still - ‘tis better not twist “facts” so they would suite your opinion even more.
While I wholeheartedly agree with you that the Inazuma archon quest was rushed, and that the traveler befriends Ei too fast considering of the things she did, I strongly disagree with your unfair mischaracterization of Ei during her 2nd story quest. You mentioned that she has 0 character development, even though in that quest she finally acknowledged how bright and precious are the dreams of her people (after the scene of her fighting alongside the ghosts of past Samurais). Also she didn't confront the puppet shogun just because her ego was hurt. After she has completely changed her views on eternity and acknowledge the importance of her people's aspirations, the puppet shogun rebelled against Ei due to its programming. The puppet wants to return Inazuma back to Ei's flawed ideals of eternity, while Ei is now in opposition against putting Inazuma back to the dark times. That is why they fought, Ei was willing to lock herself up in battle for 500 years for the future of her nation. The deadlock between her and the puppet shogun also serves as a form of consquences towards her misrule of Inazuma. I don't understand how you completely fail to understand Ei's development during her 2nd story quest, it's as if you hate her to the point that you're unwilling to accept the fact she can still change to the better.
Thank you. Crazy that I had to sort by new to see people pointing this out. That entire section of the video had my jaw on the floor and not in a good way.
@@Venat2322 Yeah, ikr. Even though Ei is one of my favourite characters in Genshin, I have to admit that her blunders in the form of sakoku decree and vision hunt decree is highly destructive towards her nation and she wasn't innocent in any way. But even then, some people like this youtuber have flat out denial towards her eventual development into a better person.
It kinda reminds me of Otto Apocalypse -Simp to his dead girlfriend -Kills his family -Become a ruler -Nuke a city of New York -Starts the 2nd Eruption -Child abduction (Sirin) -Child torture (Sirin) -Many killing -Almost start another eruption (ch 9) -Betray most of his companion -Almost reset the world 500 years back -Acknowledge and embrace all what he's doing The HUGE difference is the other characters acknowledge he's a bad guy, punish him from his wrong doing, regret his actions and he also pay the ultimate price of death. I can't believe Genshin story telling is this bad.
The worst part is that Kallen wasn't even his girlfriend, she was Yae Sakura's lover lol I'm not sure if he began to do all those stuff with the sole purpose of reviving her, because she would fall in love with him after or if he just wanted her to live. Still an AWESOME VILLAIN nonetheless, with awesome arc and awesome ending, and the story never ever hides the fact that he did AWFUL stuff, he was always a bad person and a villain, and that never changed, not even when the game made us feel sad for his death, he was still a villain.
@@pistonfry Well... Okay then, I guess, I thought it was more than just pretty obvious... They kissed in one episode of Cooking with Valkyries, the manga confirmed, and also the quiz event during new year that was a question about Kallen's true love and the right answer is Yae Sakura... Is that enough proof? If it isn't then I'm not fighting you just to proof the point because I'm not stupid, I just thought it was pretty obvious they were lovers
This is something me and buds actually discuss every so often. Notably, because we often talk about the archons and leaders of respective nations cause boredom be damned. I'm not a Genshin nowadays, but reading up on lore and watching insight from different people has lead me back to just questioning Raiden as a character.
6:40 I was with you until this. This is a bad take - you can't ignore the "lore" because that's still part of Genshin and it's characters. I get that you only want to count the quest but Genshin is not a book where that is how you take the story, it's a video game and the medium has many ways of delivering character. Just because players don't (to you, an arbitrary 90%) read these supplementary in-game texts, it doesn't mean they aren't part of the game. I think the way Ei was written in the Archon Quest was terrible but her actual characterization and development is why people like her and feel she's got more to her than the bad writing of the Archon Quest Your read of her part 2 quest couldn't be more inaccurate. Ei didn't feel offended by her puppet, it was Ei from when she was cold-hearted and traumatized, unwilling to embrace a change to her idea of eternity. That battle was symbolic, and Ei was writing herself off as someone who was ineffective at running Inazuma anyway, and that Miko could do it. It's not a defense, this is just the characterization and it's who Ei is. Liking her for them isn't the same as overlooking her faults I'm typing this as you childishly write off anyone who defends her as a simp. Sure.
Wasn't Makoto not a fighter? It could've been cool to see her admonish and give Ei advice but she ain't beating anyone, the only fight she ever fought in without Ei carrying her (Khaenri'ah) she got killed in
Very eloquent manner to describe the flaws with the character writing on both Raiden and Inazuma’s story as a whole. Great video Soul, keep up the great work. 👌🏻🤌🏻
I love how she didn't even know that time was different while she fought the puppet, she straight up thought he left Inazuma without leadership or guidance for 500 years. 😂😂😂 It's so funny how the best archon quest in version 2 isn't even from Inazuma, they got done dirty
"she straight up thought he left Inazuma without leadership or guidance for 500 years" she flat out said that she's entrusting leadership to Yae Miko until she returns.
Raiden isn't a bad person, she's mentally ill. I agree that was forgiven WAY too easily but she should have gotten treatment and help she needs while she paid for her crimes, like any mentally ill criminal.
What i dislike about inazumas story is how confusing it was. I did the quest a bit later than everyone else when it dropped and without people explaining that there are two (three) raidens, i would've never caught on to that by myself. I remember finishing it and being so confused because it just ends. And raiden's idea of eternity has to be the most backwards definition of eternity. Why would you let the fatui influence and put your citizien in harms way, if not kill them, why a civil war, why steal visions. What about all this is preserving eternity, which would be the 'status quo' wouldn't it? But one look at the traveler and suddenly THEY'RE the treat. The only thing that i guess makes sense in that way is locking foreigners up and out but even that. And the whole puppet idea was so convoluted. Id have enjoyed it more if the puppet was more flawed so we could FEEL there was a difference between them without having to consulte the wiki.
10:06 THANK YOU!!!! Best video you ever made!!! ❤❤❤ I was telling this all of my friends, when they asked why I hated her. The no redemption p*sses me off too.... 🙄😅🤣🤣🙌🏼 (Scaramouche is one of the “evil characters” I love and you probably too.) Right?
lets talk about how xiao is SO traumatized (even more than ei is) yet xiao would NEVER do anything even slightly harmful to his country. why do people think that trauma is a way to excuse evil!? she is just a BAD PERSON. thats it.
@@senu. do you think that xiao would have ended up like her if he had no guidance? no. there is a VERY clear difference in their mindsets and way of thinking. xiao has always held guilt for things that arent even his fault, even when he was without any help from zhongli. ei very clearly has no guilt if you read her voiceline about thoma. get out of here ei defender
@@raiden8063 difficult to take anything you say seriously when your username shows how biased you are. stop arguing with literally everyone in this comment section it’s embarrassing
I think I never gave too much thought about how she acts in the story compared to contemplating how fucked up the region was in terms of the conditions that had to be dealt with. Like, my thought during the story was "Hey, let's beat up this shut-in who doesn't know how to rule a nation, yet is the best warrior of that nation"
@@vincentiuskwpI will list some of the fucked up stuff. 1) A shit ton of corruption(literally at the start of the archon quest one of the first things that happens is we almost getting scammed out of our money, than a bit later on we are almost tricked into working forever for someone, and in the final act we learn that 2 of the Tri commisions betrayed their God and nation due to corruption, and than when said clans are close to be punished there is someone trying to force one of the member to confess something false so that this person can get political benefits and... yeah I think I don't need to continue listing the rest lf the example to show Inazuma has SERIOUS corruption issues. 2) An literal civ war, with multiple deaths from both sides. 3) the war made so that it was basically impossible to live in 1/3 of the whole country or even just have commerce or... anything productive with that part of the country, this is because that part of the country was being used for the war(Watatsumi and Yashiori inslands) that Raiden made an blind eye on purpose, and also because of an curse released(which by the way, was released BECAUSE of the war). 4) The Foreigners did nothing to suffer what they were passing by, away from everyone and everything they knew without hope of returning, being harassed, judged and explored by locals to the point the Foreigners even united and doing their best could barely survive. And quess who approved the law that made them pass by this and didn't give them time to exit Inazuma before putting the Decree in effect? Raiden. 5) what happened to some vision Holders, even if it is an minority within an minority it still was an destiny for most worse than death itself. Making them lose all their hopes and dreams, forgetting important people, places and things for them. Being crushed by their own feelings as they now have nothing to help them carry this weight as Raiden took it from them, as they are now just hollow shells of who they were. Even if at the time it was an small number, it still was an horrible fate, and if Raiden's reign continued unchanged than even more people would suffer it. 6) The Inazuma economy was getting worse because of the Sakoku decree(for example the woman that sell dresses in Ayaka's quests didn't have materials for the dress Ayaka wanted, so we had to search for it with the Foreigners who still had some in store).
TLDR: Thanks I completely agree, fuck her story and the whole of Inazuma. I'm so glad you made this video! I absolutely love playing (gacha) games for the story (FGO, Hoyo games, etc) but the Inazuma story line killed Genshin for me up until Sumeru came out. It got to the point where I was ranting to so many of my friends about it that I considered getting into content creation just to slander her. I remember in version 2.0 I was so excited to see the end of the story because I thought Raiden Ei was gonna have the best character arc yet and that I was gonna love her more than I already did bc of how much I liked Raiden Mei from HI3. Boy was I SO wrong. I absolutely loathe Inazuma and a big part of it is due to her story. How am I supposed to feel anything when it really seems like her reign of terror only really affects foreigners and people with visions? Every other normal person seems fine, these mfs are holding festivals on the regular. So if normal Inazumans are fine, then why are Teppei and the others fighting? They don't have visions AND they are native to the land. Why should I care about this rebellion??? Speaking of vision holders being affected, is that really the case? Because Itto had his vision taken away but it doesn't seem like he changed in the slightest. Perhaps it's a case by case scenario or maybe playable characters are immune to stripped vision depressive episodes, either way it's stupid. Not only does it feel like there are NO stakes, in the end Yae Miko shows up and Raiden pretty much immediately concedes like "omg Miko, hiiiii~". She could've had a dramatic scene where she refuses to give up and screams at us about wanting to keep her eternity but instead she hits us with a "ggwp". Almost like Ei didn't even care about her own ambition for eternity... oh wait, it's cuz SHE DIDN'T. THE WORST SIN IMAGINABLE IS TELLING ME THAT HER SECOND QUEST REDEEMS HER IN ANYWAY. SHE OUTRIGHT SAYS THAT SHE BUILT THE PUPPET WITH A FAIL SAFE FUNCTION JUST INCASE SHE GIVES UP ON HER ETERNITY WHICH MEANS SHE STRAIGHT UP NEVER BELIEVED IN HER OWN ACTIONS FROM THE VERY START. And yeah, if they did want to make her evil then they definitely could have just made her straight up evil. We don't need every playable character to be 'good' or to like the traveler. I want more playable characters who are just menaces, maybe even just a dickhead who is rude to the traveler idk. She also killed off Signora which is sad bc Hoyo doesn't understand that not every playable character has to be alive either. In a gacha game there are always creative ways around it like an event or something that shows us remnants or shadows of the past or something. I've been saying this for well over a year now, but Hoyo just hates Japan for some reason. The tech otakus are absolutely NOT saving the world. but I still simp bc Mei expy and Sawashiro Miyuki
agree totally with the fact that not everyone has to redeemed (or alive) to be playable !!! honestly i feel our most ‘evil’ playable characters are scaramouche and tartaglia, which makes me feel like if arlecchino becomes playable she’ll either be redeemed or dead. i dont understand why hoyoverse can’t just make playable characters that arent friends with the traveler !!
@@mazeditsvsf tartaglia is barely an "evil" character, more like grey. He was forced into the fatui by his father, felt into the abyss as a kid, still has some form of humanity. Friends with Yoimiya, Xinyan, Traveler, and cares about kids. He hates his coworkers especially Dottore and Arlecchino.
11:20 okay I agree she was badly handled but this part is so wildly incorrect Homie straight up did her second story quest with his eyes closed to think any of this
Fair, though strangely I kinda fell a little bad for the puppet?? Like picture her, somebody who has been shown to at least be SOMEWHAT sentient, be destroyed by her own creator cause she still was doing the ONE THING she was made to do, it kinda feels like the puppet did have some free will, and while scaramouche goes on adventure with the grass loli or whatever, the shogun puppet was always used as a tool until found no longer needed, a sentient being who was tasked with doing a singular goal forever, only to be cast aside when it was no longer useful, pitiful, from a certain point of view
@@carlosfunez4036 The Shogun still exists and is fulfilling her role though, just with modified rules as per their agreement when she lost the duel with Ei Like this guy's just straight up wrong about saying she was destroyed, heck in the end Ei even acknowledges her personhood and says it was wrong to treat her like a tool to which the Shogun says she'll shadow her like Ei once did for her own sister She also apparently enjoyed the fight as a warrior
I loved raiden because she was a morally gray character but they fucked up so bad by trying to "redemption" her arc I hated her story quest, i hated how everyone just said "yeah man lets just forgive the dictator" and from someone who IS from a country that had a shit ton of dictatorships, it was really sad seeing how the citizens would just, forgive her
Man, I remember fucking despising inazuma when I played through it all back to back, returning to the game in 2.6 It's surreal how unlikeable Raiden and Miko are. Bitch gets to have her cake and eat it to, fucking zero tangible consequences to her actions. To this day I'm not sure if the story in Sumeru was good or if I was just excited about never having to set foot in inazuma ever again.
The worst part she didn’t even end up being a badass girlboss villain. It became oh Makoto was the brain and Ei was the brawn that’s why Inazuma been fucked up because Makoto dead and Ei isn’t as smart in canon. Now she’s just canonically the dumber one of the twins it’s not that she’s evil.
And to think i did not even mention the things she did to Scara and Sara since i was not including the lore.
What did she do to Sara? I don't know if I missed something in the archon quest.
Sara was done so dirty it sucks 😭
Finally
Someone who actually reads and take notes of the events.
Yes it's not just Raiden. Most of the characters are poorly written, cringe moments or a bad background.
This is proof that genshin is a bad written story and at some point it just became a game with no end game and with so many lackluster events, stories.
In reality It's just a game with good visuals.
And I don't think it's going to change anytime soon.
Give punishing gray raven a try soul.
😊
I agree with Poriya’s comment. Punishing Gray Raven could be your speed and you can skip dialogue/cutscenes in the game if you don’t enjoy the story. The gameplay is challenging yet fun imo.
I thought that Sara believed that Archons gave Visions so she was thankful to Raiden for that, plus I'm pretty sure Sara isn't that old, but I haven't played in over a year so I could be misremembering
NPC: *Gets mad at Raiden*
Every guard: Killin time
This could've been a darker follow up from the Archon quest to Ei's story quest lbh...
If Ei were to step outside of the plain of Euthymia and change the law, the people of Inazuma will IMMEDIATELY cast her out as a refugee and replace an electro Archon with Yae miko.
I heard there was a fanfic about Yae miko being the next Archon while Ei isn't and still recovering from her irredeemable decisions outside of Inazuma while the mc talks to her.
I don't know which fanfic is from but that would've been an interesting premise if you're curious to read it.
@@walteranurantha5014 Sadly nah, I'm done with Hoyoverse stuff and deleted the two newer games recently.
@@spec2893Congratulations from breaking your chains
nah bro she was punished with the inability to cook for all of eternity.
please become funny
@@SaviourOfLight I am funny wuchu talkin about
More punishment for others In this case 😅
@@SaviourOfLightlol ratio'd
That somehow makes me more angry honesty
my main problem with her is not that she did all these terrible things. it's the fact that she doesn't get punished for it. everyone accepts her. and she acts like everything's fine
@@Manuel-nl6hr at least show in some way that people don't like her 💀 nah, they are cool with her
@@omegothicbecause they like her
@@omegothic I don’t think there is any need of that… scara’s fans hatred is enough already 🙂
And if I remember correctly there was some watatsumi soldier who has shown some remaining hatred towards the shogun’s army during kokomi’s story quest
Go punish an aARCHON, oh well, try doing that for the most powerful Archon in Teyvat.
@omegothic91
While playing the last arc I was fully convinced that Yae was plotting to overthrow her and become the new electro archon, not out of malice towards her friend, but because she thought Ei wasn't a good ruler, Ei then would either get exiled which would eventually lead to her experiencing things that would change her world view for the better or she would go off on her own in another pursuit of enlightenment which would result in the same thing
...but noup
Raiden: (brakes every human rights regulation)
Raiden: "my bad"
Every one: "Yo Guys she said she was sorry, maybe she isn't that bad"
Players who acutely read and listen to the story and don't simp: "What the fuck?"
Felt, although I like her gameplay,I just don't like how the story rushed for her. It's just unrealistic.
When i finished inazuma i was like “ bro what the quack is this “ like how does a my little pony archon get forgiven ( i say my little pony because she looks like twilight sparkle )
what are you gonna do? kill her? can you? Also MC is lame ass with no personality and Paimon is MC so who cares.
@@Konron_choasTwilight Sparkle is a better ruler.
@@PowerSpirit50 for real
I never understood why she was forgiven so easily. The definition of pretty privilege I guess lol
I meannnnn…who’s actually going to stop her. I’m not talking like Miko or Traveler, I mean what commission want to take her down knowing she is a god
@@ill_will8077the commissions or anyone could at least have a facade of content when in front of Raiden but still hold hidden discontentment or maybe even resentment. But not a single soul holds any semblance of hidden resentment for her. Which is weird considering what she did
I remember having this conversation multiple times (because i really hate Raiden and Yae) and no matter what i was saying all i heard in response were "Zhongli was worse, he abandoned his people, he decided to test them and it's stupid" and "You don't understand, she knew everything, in the eyes of the Archon some small lives don't matter, because she wanted to achieve eternity!" and "She doesn't need to apologize, she is the god! Why god should apologize to mere humans?" etc. and etc. At that point i understood that arguing with those people is pointless, no matter what i say they're the right ones, and i'm the mere hater who doesn't understand the grandiosity of Raiden's personality. Who needs logic anyway when boobasword conquers everything?
@@atomicgrave4340
Fools and pathetic simps, that's what they are.
@@atomicgrave4340most i hear is just people saying, oh thats raiden's actions, not ei's! so shes innocent!
And honestly, Scaramouche's story made her character even worse... even Miko wasn't spared. Like bro, why can't you dump the guy in a damn orphanage?! Or offer him a place with caretakers in your palace? Why those ladies only thought about two options, abandoning or murdering? Who tf thought that it's a good idea to leave emotionally unstable infant in a sealed domain?! And how in the world the oh so smart Yae couldn't offer less risky options on how to deal with Scara after learning that Ei doesn't really want to kill him? It's just so dumb it's ridiculous.
it's crazy that you see more ppl blaming dottore for scara versus realizing ei is guilty from the get go. It shows how ppl will always defend their "waifus"
@@softjytsu exactly, i dislike when people become purposely dense about a character's lore to defend another character they like. Ei was first to abandon him, then Dottore took advantage the emotionally vulnerable scara.
@@softjytsuSo, are you saying dottore is innocent?
@raiden8063 no one's saying dottore is innocent, and pierro by extension, since he was the one that ordered dottore to put the tatarasuna sabotage in motion, and the harbingers have their own agenda.
they're just saying ei is not innocent since she indirectly played a hand in Scaramouche's downfall, albeit indirectly, by sealing him inside a domain, doomed to sleep by eternity, instead of looking after him. Or hell, maybe just give him up for adoption to a good family, teach him some shit before you dump him in the middle of nowhere. Ei failed her creation, who saw her as a mother.
@@softjytsuPpl blame Dottore cause he's the one responsible for murdering the friends he found, manipulating him and torturing him through experiments. Even if Ei had abandoned him, without the Fatui he probably would've lived a good life.
And the craziest part is there are still people saying that inazuma's story is better than sumeru's 😭 (tectone especially)
In my opinion liyue and the false death of Rex lapis was the best we’ve got so far. The cinematics truly show the massive budget they started the game with!
@@lorraineviruet8973 well, if we're talking about specific part then yeah liyue act3 is a great choice I love it too but overall story I think it has to go to sumeru
I only like it a little bit more, because when you stared the quest I was actually scared of her. I thought it was a good idea to have a insane archon who went off the deep end. It sounds like I'd rather fight a dictator than a drug dealer issue. If that makes sense. But I absolutely agree with baals character sucking so hard it actually upsets me
Tectone is a troll and a narcissist. Best not to give his opinions any weight, cause you never know when he's baiting to farm drama, or he's coming from a personal/simp opinion.
@@__Krystal__ how is he a narcissist? And why do you think he baits for drama? I thought he just gave his opinions on genshin
I hope our criticisms about Raiden Shogun will change how The Tsaritsa is written in the future. She's literally like the most important character considering she's an archon that founded the Fatui.
My god if they pull a raiden story quest #1 with the tsaritsa... 💀
fr i remember after raiden's first quest, how i'm still scared for the tsarista
What criticism was seen?
Yeah no have you seen her birthday letters and art? Her appearances in events? All the wholesome official art and fanart about her? Nothing was heard. I expect the Tsaritsa to rival her in terms of bad writing.
@@Lala-g4pI mean its already too late to fix raiden. If they did another 180 and turned her evil again that would make it even worse. Its better to take criticism and make another character be written good from the very begining
My headcanon is the people of Inazuma are just scared of the Shogun doing a second vision hunt decree/sakoku decree (or just get mad in general) if they disrespected her, so all they do is try to forget the event like it never happened and put on fake smiles whenever she's around.
Like if you're a north korean citizen and see kim jong un in the streets, you're not gonna talk shit in front of him cause you know he's gonna end you on the spot, so all you can do is just smile and wave pretending to be happy.
To be fair, most of the people on inazuma wouldn't care about the vision hunt decree, since they don't have visions
@@stfilo1948 You forget that the vision hunt decree also caused inazuma to be isolated and the people couldn't leave the island until it was over. I'm sure they wouldn't want something like that to happen again.
Edit: ah my bad, I seem to have mistaken the sakoku decree as the vision hunt decree. But you get the idea, sakoku decree closes the border = people of inazuma aren't happy cause they're stuck there.
@@Aurorien yeah the sakoku decree defenetly caused a lot of issues
but the fact that has to be a headcanon for you is the problem , the writing is so poor because it never explains wtf happened next and the way Ayato comes into the story feels random asf as well
@@softjytsu This!
this might out of topic, but another badly written character imo is Kokomi, no hate to her fans and VA but every time she is featured in an event or something, everyone's like "OMG it's the renowned watatusmi general who is adept in the art of war" "she's a genius strategist", and I'm like, bitch, where? Alhaitham was more of a strategist than she is, and he actually able to show it off lol
exactly and he was just a feeble scholar
Kokomi wrote a book full of every possible outcome, I guess that's count??Idk
the best part is alhaitham isn't even trained for military like kokomi and he was able to come up with a plan to save the dendro archon perfectly
@@kamikazeyo1379 true but lets remember he graduated from the akademiya whil being a scribe so he knew the ins and outs and what needed to be done, alhaitham as a KID was bored when he first got into the Akademiya after a day so his grandma homeschooled him until she died, so he's just naturally a smart ass character
The sumeru AQ showed alhaitam being a tactical genius than every kokofish mention ive seen. Only thing not making me go batshit on her is that her aesthetics are pretty and her eng voice sounds like asmr
For the longest time I thought there was just something wrong with me, it's nice to see that there are people who see the same problems I do with Raiden Shogun and the inazuma archon quest
The most frustrating part of Raiden to me is that she actually has ideas in her character that can make her incredibly compelling... but they aren't properly explored at all. She faces no meaningful consequences for her actions and is therefore not driven to improve herself by those consequences. Hence, the character development she does get is utterly uncompelling. And since Raiden is the core part of Inazuma's storyline, she drags it aaaaaaall down with herself.
Nothing is properly explored in Genshin Impact aside the map.
Yep, I agree. Inazuma and her could have been SO much better if they had better writing, but they're horribly written and explored incompetently.
@@rickynguyen5108 tmw when the World Quests in Inazuma are a lot better than the AQ. I still miss Ruu.
@@BiBiren
When ANYTHING else is better than the Inazuma Archon Quest.
That just makes every character in Inazuma (and their Story Quests) and the Archon Quest itself completely irrelevant as fuck, and thus why I don't give a rat's ass about any of them. The ones I care about are the characters of Sumeru and Nahida, since they were written very WELL.
Don't forget about Monstaldt, Liyue, and their characters, they were written well.
YES! THANK YOU!
She caused her own people to forget their loved ones, and lose their personality/soul through her vision hunt decree, created Scara and threw him away cause he was too emotional when she gave him the gnosis, AND put a hollow husk of herself as dictator while she stayed in her own domain cause of "grief" while also knowing everything that's been going on and being ok with it.
Honestly, she was one of the most selfish, uncaring, and 'life ruining' (for regular people), characters in genshin. And she gets forgiven by the fandom just like that cause she's hot and was "grieving".
Meanwhile, everyone hates on Scara even though his first days being brought into this world was being tossed away due to him being too "emotional", then being used and manipulated by others to the point of torture and which led him wanting to lose said emotions.
Everyone blames him for Teppei dying, when in the archon quest it shows/says that signora handed Scara the factory the day we meet him. and he literally says right then and there that "someone should be arriving soon so I better make a warm welcome" (meaning us). He literally arrived that day then met us, so if Teppei's death is to be blamed on anyone, it's the fatui/tsaritsa and/or Ei since she "knew" and was "ok" with everything happening in inazuma at the time colluding with the fatui.
But most people overlook those details cause they only see it once and forgot about it, or they have their own headcannons from the storyline and believe said hc no matter what else is shown.
That's why I love this channel. You see through the bs, and point out the things most people would be too scared to point out (or just live in ignorance) because "mommy".
The fact people forgive her actions just because she's hot is pathetic and stupid as fuck. That's superficial and lazy, not to mention that they're simps with no critical thinking skills whatsoever.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
If somebody says that they liked Teppei, that's fine. But if someone says that Teppei was a well written character, and hate on Scara for mocking him, I'd raise an eyebrow.
@@ziephel-6780 True, I felt no attachment or kinship for that NPC /AT ALL/.
@@Weltte How people condemn one important character for a short-term side character is beyond me.
Isn't that the same case with Childe and Scaramouche too? They're also forgiven for being handsome despite having killed many people as well.
The way she just discarded Scaramouche was also kinda... But then the defenders come like "Ooh she gave him freedom and a "protected by the shogun" charm" like OK BUT YOU JUST GONNA THROW A SENTIENT BEING YOU MADE AWAY??? PROM NIGHT DUMPSTER BABYD SCARAMOUCHE
At this point she should’ve made that bully kid clean the entire tunshikaku if given him a freedom is a mistake.
And to be honest she should’ve done that so we won’t have to resurrect that bully piece of plastic who didn’t just tried to destroy the MC for three times but also brainwashing Haypasia and bullying nahida before starting to cry like a baby when she took the gnosis from him
This is proof that a character could do Griffith level things and get away with it as long as he/she is attractive lol.
Also Raiden says she wants immortality for her people, but she never says or gives any hints of how, I mean, what was she doing all this time? gathering de dragon balls or something? What was the point of 500 years of meditation or whatever she was doing?
damn straight When her banner sales skyrocketed to some of the highest numbers genshin has ever seen, We weren't thinking she's a good person. I bought her thinking: "BoOb SwoRd"
wdym griffith did nothing wrong
Griffith is also very attractive. I mean every important anime/manga character is attractive, i guess ugly ppl are side characters.
@@Madddorashbut everyone hates griffith
@@purplefoir971I mean tbf, she is really strong meta wise so that helped a lot .
What’s also stupid is that Raiden didn’t step down from her role as the ruler of Inazuma. The sheer amount and weight of the mistakes she did to her nation, it’s crazy that her people (especially Sara) still accept her. Her retiring from being the ruler would have been a sign that she acknowledges the consequences of what she did and strive to become better. Mark my words: After Genshin Impact’s story is completed (which could take like 3-4 years), the country of Inazuma will once again become what it was during the Archon Quest.
That's an interesting theory! But in my opinion, I think it's pretty unlikely that the sukoku decree and vision hunt decree would ever come back in any capacity, the fatui were actively manipulating the shogun and the situation to their advantage, regardless of any of this, I still agree that her writing is jank lol 😆
Isn't Sara delusional because she believes that Shogun granted her vision and it saved her life, something like that? She's basically a fanatic, so she's the last person who will go against the Shogun.
I highly doubt it bc Inazuma is ultimately a slave to the whims of the writers of genshin and, to an extent, the community. So as long as she remains a favorite, the chances of the writers showing realistic consequences of her actions are very low
@@helloworld7515At least the TCG event showed a little bit of consequences
Atrocities?
One of the few times I remember the citizens acknowledging the shogun in a "negative" way after all she did was during the TCG event and Raiden was questioning why the citizens were so afraid of her during her matches.
Even then though, I doubt it really had anything to do with her past actions and more so them being intimidated playing against their literal god unfortunately which is a shame because I feel like it should be something that gets addressed in a future quest.
soul may not remember but people definitely were afraid of her in her hangout story quest. like when they went to buy raiden a book and someone was afraid she would get offended by it.
There’s also the world quest called “the path of papers” in sumeru and how an npc missed her deadline over the decree
It's truly fear.
one thing I feel like nobody really mentions is the fact that the shogun puppet just seems to be dead set on killing aether at all means necessary because he's an "enemy of eternity" and yet they never elaborated as to why he's an enemy of eternity, it feels like the just wanted to make a character that wanted aether dead for no reason other than she can
I do find it so funny how Ei is one of the worst written character while her son is one of the best written. I'm glad Scara deleted himself from the worlds memories, Ei would have just messed him up more tbh. This video was great!!
his story build up was well written, we saw him through different stages unlike ei
well scara had two years of development while raiden was fixed and solved in two patches
Both shit ngl they both have tantrum,
Scara deleting himself has freed Ei of having to face up to him
Now we will never see that resolved
I think that is bs
@@quietguyjosh4643 with her shit writing you should be glad he will never confront her, the only scenario this game will allow is Scara forgiving her or even having him liking her without showing the process of him forgiving her or her admitting any mistakes
Raiden is pretty much social judgement in a nutshell.
"Oh? He/She commited multiple crimes against humanity and has spread irreversible damage to the world? No way! He/She is hot, He/She clearly wouldn't do that! You hallucinating and shit."
*Lmao*
Double standard be like
Yeah, it's pathetic. She needs to pay fully for her actions.
@rickynguyen5108 If anything, if she just had some aknowledgement, and traveler had to help her reform. That'd be way better. An amateur writer could do better than the ending Hoyo gave to Inazuma. That's saying something, cuz Sumeru was sick.
@@mattsopiratoso790
True, if her actions were truly acknowledged and she had to atone for them with the traveler helping her reform, that'll be cool. A fucking monkey could have written better than what Mihoyo did.
I think that in Yae Mikos shrine there is a huge Men In Black neuralyzer to wipe periodically the npc's, characters and players minds of the past actions done by Raiden/Ei. That is why that mountain shrine can be seen from very far on other nations.
Couldn't have said it any better
Oh my god! Yeah the story itself is fine, but the fact that during her story quest they're in AWE of her!!!???? Like, this woman quite literally destroyed peoples' lives, and sure, the non-vision holders, fine, but at least have Thoma or Gorou or SOMEONE show up and act cold towards her for what she did! The fact that it wasn't acknowledged drives me insane
As much as I love her design, I still won't pull for her due to her story and the fact Hoyoverse tried sooo hard to get you to like her and that just made me hate her even more.
One argument used is the fact it's based on Feudal Japan and how people were basically brainwashed into believing the government was always right back then, hence why the people of Inazuma are perfectly fine with Ei's actions, which imo makes her even worse.
Dito. 😂
Same. Skipping every time no matter how good her kit is.
Yeah. Horribly-written character and dumbass Mihoyo trying so hard to get you to like her that it's insulting to your intelligence. Fuck Mihoyo, they should have written her better to begin with. Also, that Feudal Japan expy just makes her worse in my eyes, and in the eyes of those who have a fucking brain and not blind.
I wanted to pull for all the archons since they’re so strong, but since I played her story I’ll always skip her, the way they wrote her left a really bad taste in my mouth.
That last excuse doesn't works because we have a rebellion going on in other islands. Many in Narukami aren't happy either
This whole video is so satisfying to hear because that's how I've felt about her and the story as well and I'm still baffled by the people defending her or saying she did nothing wrong, I hope Tectone reacts to this vid because he's one of the biggest defender of the Inazuma arc. And btw I also don't like Yae.
I love villains as well, in games, anime, shows, comics or movies I always gravitate towards villains as well, and dislike the fact that a character needs to be morally good to be playable.
It’s a bit frustrating that Yae acts like Raiden is just a sulking child having a small tantrum. Just lets everything happen and seems to only care for Raiden’s wellbeing, not of Inazuma.
She kind of nudges things in a way that would make Ei wake up and leave her “eternity”. But for Raidens sake.
Of course we cannot know everything and Yae isn’t the most straightforward person. Maybe she knew her words and actions would be ignored and had to be sneaky.
Yeah, it's honestly pathetic, really. A character DOESN'T NEED to be good to be playable. Trying to make them good and playable just ruins the writing behind them.
Look at FGO's Doman Ashiya, he's evil as fuck and he revels in it, and he's playable.
Please don't take this as an attack or flaming and I apologize for the TL;DR of criticism I'm about to inflict on you, but this video is not really that well-researched. If it's just meant to be a funny video dunking on a character you don't like then fair enough, but as a serious analysis it kind of fails due to information being omitted or otherwise misconstrued in favor of your argument. You kind of touch on the bad aspects of how Raiden was handled (which I agree there are!) but it's wrapped in some points that either feel like they were interpreted in bad faith or are even just outright objectively incorrect. This is gonna be two parts cause RUclips's weird (apologies again for the length here, I hate commenting on this site for this reason).
2:30 - Raiden didn't really "enslave" anyone; the Sakoku decree certainly made it much harder to come and go (coupled with the corrupt Kanjou commission over-taxing people and basically extorting them) but they weren't 100% trapped on principle. Beidou even says that she's visited Inazuma while the decree was still going on.
3:25 - the Archons don't give people visions. It's possible they have some influence on it since supposedly no new Electro visions have appeared since the Sakoku decree was enacted, but they are outright stated to not be the ones handing them out. Any story that says they do (the Vishaps or Sara) are from the perspective of non-divinity; I'm going to trust the actual god on this one.
3:40 - this is a messy area but visions affect people differently. Sure Ayaka showed us people who were affected negatively by it, but you also have Itto who was not affected at all, or that guy who gave his vision to Ayato who said he was actually thankful to lose his vision and it just felt like a burden he didn't want. This is their (admittedly not that well told) attempt at showing nuance in the scenario.
3:55 - the Shogun had no idea the war was going on; it was waged by the Tenryou commission, the head of which later gets arrested for it when the Shogun finds out. This is honestly kind of dumb since how do you miss a war as a leader even if it's primarily being fought on a far away island, but it is the reason that the war went on for as long as it did; if the Shogun herself fought the battle it would likely be over in a week at most just due to her general powerlevel being so high.
4:35 - when the Fatui's crimes are brought to light they actually are kicked out of Inazuma. You see this in Kokomi's story quest; they're mad about it and even want to avenge Signora (who signed up for her own death when she accepted the duel). And the Shogun didn't know the extent of what the Fatui were doing, just that they were there and were at least partially the ones who suggested the VHD. The Fatui are active in every nation, like let's not pretend that Zhongli didn't actively conspire with them in the Liyue Archon Quest.
5:00 - First off, this is out of order; the peoples' ambitions only come after the dialogue is had and Yae Miko appears. Second off, what you say isn't what's said in the game; you can see here (genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/The_Omnipresent_God) that all that is told to Ei is that the Fatui deceived the Shogun, nothing about the suffering or anything else going on outside of a vague "but it's damaging". Ei herself even replies saying she doesn't actually know what's going on outside, only things "related to eternity", which is so vague that it could mean any number of things. Yes she mentions people dying for their ambitions but this could mean any number of things, including people who died in the Calamity 500 years ago. It's overall too vague to say definitively how much she knew, but considering her actions after the quest (kicking out the Fatui, arresting the corrupt commission heads, pushing for peace talks) I'm pretty confident in saying it isn't as much as she thought.
6:05 - yes it is mentioned in the game which I'll touch on in a second, but honestly this idea of ignoring the lore doesn't sit right with me. As much as I also don't like Genshin's habit of putting important character stuff in obscure item descriptions and videos, they're still part of the story and thus need to be considered. And on the topic of Raiden's story as a whole, her lore actually is expanded on in game and thus ignoring it is unfair; the teaser you reference was released before 2.1, and is elaborated on with a much more in depth cinematic in 2.1's climax (one of the few good parts of 2.1's ending if I'm being honest).
1/2
2/2
7:00 - the traveller is the one who challenged Ei. Ei just said "Fine, then please enlighten me". She didn't threaten the traveller's life. There's never any conditions made either; Ei absolishes it in the end in accordance with the will of the people since her whole thing is communicating best through battle.
7:20 - I mean what were you expecting, a bureaucratic meeting about abolishing it? This isn't even the most egregious offscreen thing in Genshin, in fact it's probably not even in the top 15.
7:45 - chronologically the first story quest takes place a good deal after the Archon Quest. I agree it can be jarring but this isn't exactly a writing flaw in and of itself as much as it is a game design flaw.
8:30 - I hate to be defending her first story quest since I was as dissapointed with it as many were, but people were absolutely nervous around her; you see it in all sorts of ways, and the dango milk guy even goes "Huh she's nicer than I was expecting" once he actually talks to her a bit. It's important to note that the VHD and Sakoku decrees were both very recent; for thousands of years before (including most of the time the Shogun puppet was ruling as far as we know) there was no real incident or cause of concern. Would I like to have seen more too? Absolutely, but this statement isn't exactly true.
9:35 - it actually is acknowledged in her second story quest. Ei herself goes into detail about how her perspective was wrong, how it caused damage, how it dishonored the people who had faith in her, and how she now needs to find a new path and fully realize what Makoto was trying to teach her. Would I like other characters to bring it up? Again sure, but it is acknowledged in some way, so this statement isn't really correct.
10:00 - I completely agree these people are annoying, but you have to understand these people exist for nearly any antagonist in existence, especially ones with any amount of moral ambiguity. I just had a conversation with someone a few weeks ago who insisted up and down that Makishima Shogo from Psyho-Pass really didn't do anything that bad and was "the real hero", and the stuff he did makes the Vision Hunt Decree look like the Shogun walked around giving everyone free ice cream. Everyone experiences media differently, and I don't think it's fair to label people "dictator sympathizers" in this case when there's lots of cases of this phenomenon in media. If your favorite characters are villains like you claim then you should be well-acquainted with this.
10:34 - sure, I can tell you that. The Heavenly Principles are explained in the Sumeru Archon Quest to be the enforcers of Celestia's will. The unknown god we see at the start of the game is stated to be a part of the Heavenly Principles. Since this is stated in an Archon Quest you can't even really use the argument of "it's in obscure text" either.
10:53 - it is addressed in the story. Ei in the 2.1 Archon Quest says that she felt compelled to go into stasis because she saw what happened to Khaenri'ah, a nation that got deleted out of existence by the higher powers of the world for the crime of striving forward. That calamity also nearly took Inazuma out at the same time while it was at it through sheer residual damage, and if it wasn't for Ei the nation would probably have been destroyed. So yeah, she was so traumatized and distraight that she thought keeping the nation the same forever would prevent Celestia from having another tantrum and destroying Inazuma like what happened there, and thought individual ambition was a threat to that stasis hence why she didn't get involved in the VHD. Misguided, absolutely, but it is explained in the story.
11:09 - this whole section on her second story quest is kind of baffling to me and what made me make this post. It honestly feels like you never actually did the second story quest and just read a cliff's notes on what happened and made assumptions from there, or if you did you skipped through the dialogue while paying zero attention. Again, I know everyone experiences media differently, but I'm forced to believe one of the two because I don't see how you could come to the conclusions you did without one of these being true.
I'm going to break these points down one at a time using proof from the story quest itself to refute it (you can find every piece of dialogue I mention here; genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Transient_Dreams).
"She destroys the puppet" - the Shogun is not destroyed in the second story quest. As you can see, the Shogun fine in the end; "Raiden Shogun: I understand. I shall become your shadow, just as you were once Makoto's shadow. The duties I perform will not change. But as a warrior, I look forward to the chance to fight like this again in the future."
"She repeats the same mistake again" - I mean if you want to get extremely nitpicky then yes, she's isolating herself again, but part of Ei's character is being a blockhead who runs into things. I don't see how it's poor writing for a character to act true to her character. She's doing this because she sees no other way of making the Shogun stand down; "Ei: If I don't do this, the Shogun's rules can never change, and Inazuma can never move forward. This is my duty. No matter how long this battle may last, months, years, centuries... And no matter how many times we must fight, I will defeat her."
"She fought because the Shogun disrespected her and hurt her feelings" - ignoring that the above quote disproves this (she's fighting so the Shogun won't stand in the way of progress), Ei isn't even the one who wanted this fight, the Shogun was and was the one who called her to it; "Ei: The discomfort I was experiencing earlier was caused by the Shogun rejecting my continued use of her body. As she indicates, once I started entertaining the idea of change, I became hostile in her eyes." "Ei: No need. "She" is calling me. The time has come. Can you help me walk, (Traveler)? I need to go to the cave below the Grand Narukami Shrine." "Raiden Shogun: This body is an assistant to the one within. But it is also the guardian of the rules. Should the one within wish to stray from the rules, this body shall stand in her way."
"She didn't care what happened to Inazuma in the mean time" - there is an entire conversation before the traveller is kicked out of the dimenion dedicated to this, where Ei says that she is trusting humanity to find their way and Miko is in charge of guiding them until this is over; "Ei: Five hundred years ago, humanity proved their strength in battle. Here in the present, they rely on their ambition to challenge wayward practices, tear them out like the diseased wood of an old sakura tree, so that new, healthy branches might spring to life in their place. It is about time that I learned to trust them." "Ei: I understand that. But if the dreams of which Makoto spoke are true eternity, a short moment for which the Shogun does not exist is nothing to fear. I fight for the everlasting future of Inazuma. However long the battle may last, it is but a drop in the ocean of eternity. I vow to the subjects of Inazuma that I shall one day return. This is my oath. Please be my witness. During my absence, I place everything in Miko's hands."
"She gets bailed out by the traveller and Yae Miko again" - this is the shadier one since it's kind of handled strangely in the quest as well, but as far as we see the main driver here is Ei, the gameplay reflects this in the fact that you can only use Ei in the battle and the traveller is just there to witness the end of this fight; "Ei: Final duel? So you're finally willing to... Stand back, Traveler. I'm going to be the start of something new." At most I think Ei was just moved by the others' concern for her that they would come back to try and save her, but there's nothing really suggesting that Ei wouldn't have been fine on her own.
Anyways, that's my piece. My apologies for the TL;DR. You seem like a fine guy and I like your videos going through them, but this one was really, REALLY off the mark. Again, if you just wanted to meme and dunk on Raiden then sure, by all means have fun, there's lots to criticize, but this video was just a really big miss if it's meant to be serious in any way.
@@Sharrymantothis, thank for making this comment
Very well written and lengthy rebuttal, with evidence to back up your claims to boot
I'm not a Raiden fan but I commend the effort, have a thumbs up
@@revivemefellas9637 Everything I said is in the story. Only a bit of my post is interpretive, most of it is directly backed up with text from the archon quest and story quests.
Simp
if she had a character arc after the inazuma plot where she was condemned by her people in a similar way to furina that wouldve been insane. from THERE i think she couldve started bettering herself instead of just having "always" been a "good" person ; this is coming from someone who has actively hated her and mikos character ever since the release of the inazuma archon quests too. seeing her stroll about inazuma in her character story with her people looking up to her in awe and reverie, greeting her politely, ... mihoyo traded what could have been character redemption for a date between ei and the traveller.
Because apparently mihoyo has to make even the hot war criminals (cough cough childe) and make them sympathetic instead of making them straight up villains who suffer consequences
(The first paragraph is the TLDR)
The worst part about her story to me is that SHE IS TREATED LIKE A REDEEMED CHARACTER WITHOUT A REDEMPTION ARC. I don't hate evil characters, I hate poorly written characters, especially poorly written evil characters. And Raiden Shogun, is the text book definition of a "reformed villain" but there is a major issue with her stories. The issue being: There are no consequences for her bad actions.
After being proven wrong by a random stranger, she just said she changed her mind and voila, she is now forgiven, not only by her people, but also by the majority of the community. Back then I felt like I was living in a fever dream because it was ridiculously absurd how quickly Raiden got away with it.
I seriously thought Mihoyo was saving the redemption arc for her story quests. And I was right, there was an attempt to redeemed her in these 2 story quests, but I cant say it was an honest attempt. Her first story quest was not a redemption arc at all, it was about proving to her that she was stupid and wrong. The way her people saw her had not changed, the way she saw her ideal version of "eternity" barely changed. Her second quest was a bit better. The lore dump aside, Raiden actually acknoledged that she was wrong and promised to be better. She wanted to change for the better, not just herself but also her nation.
But wait. Do you feel like Mihoyo is skipping something? That's right. WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES FOR EVERY BAD THINGS SHE DID? Did they seriously think she deserves every good thing in this world just because she wants to be better now? I know I sounded like a dick after that sentence but I this really makes Raiden less of an interesting character. It is extremely unrealistic for people like her, who not only allowed but also commited horrendous crimes to be forgiven this easily. She has never proven to her people that she is an reliable leader to lean onto after abolishing the decree. And her people just took her word for it, surely she would never do that again.
On a side note, I really wish we can have an extra story quest about the politics of Inazuma before and after the decree. It would be so interesting to explore how much an Archon's decision can influence the decisions of other commissions. Having an Archon is like having Superman in your country, which is terrifying if it happens in real life. A being that has the capabilities to wipe out nations, who operates mostly based on their moralities (and sometime their mood) has ascended to declare that she is now your god. She swears she would only do good but can she keep that promise for an eternity like she said? Would her way of doing "good" clash with our boundaries of moralities? Now that she had commited horrendous crime, should we put his trust in her again, or should we just take matters into our own hand, like the Sumerian scholars did? It is some interesting idead I think about time to time.
Yep. It just shows that Mihoyo sucks at writing meaningful characters and giving them good character development. Those two story quests of her barely do anything to change that.
@@rickynguyen5108I mean, zhongli has a pretty good story tbh
@@phoenyan2087
He does, which is extremely baffling. Venti and Zhongli (including Nahida) are written WELL, unlike that pathetic excuse that is Raiden. This shows to me that Mihoyo can actually write good (as in well written) characters, they're just too damn lazy and greedy to do so.
Inazuma and every character from it are the lowest point in Genshin, and the storytelling and dialogue are already complete GARBAGE to begin with. Not to mention the reverse powercreep, shitty interview that states no meaningful end game content, DEHYA, and the two pathetic anniversaries.
Did you forget about the part where she got locked in battle with her puppet for 500 years non-stop as a form of punishment for her mistakes?
@@phoenyan2087As I see it this is a sex thing, the male characters and the female characters have a contracting writing some of the guy characters (like Albado) feels like Mihoyo want to tell a story with mystery, wonder, a flowing narrative
However with the female characters there’s a status quo, Monstant has a tired workaholic that can’t take care of themselves Jean, now this wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for having two additional tired workaholic who can’t take care of themselves Ganyu and Keqing
This wouldn’t be a nagging issue for me if Ganyu and Keqing were different then Jean, cuz, you, know all 3 are different people with their own history and priorities
I remember seeing a content creator do a poll where people got to vote on their most liked and most disliked/hated Genshin characters. perhaps unsurprisingly, Raiden scored spots in the top 10 for both lists (as did Wanderer). it goes to show that plenty of people were given a highly negative impression of the Raiden Shogun (or Ei?) and it caused lasting damage. usually you could argue other factors make a character hated, but she's meta, a hot lady and pulls a sword out of her booba.... it's gotta be the damning plot and its terrible execution
This video is the absolute true...
I'm really glad that everyone in the fandom thinks Inazuma is Genshin's lowest point. And in an interview the developers confessed that Ei was the character that had the most changes and.... Yes, indeed, I can see that. That's why there are so many inconsistencies in it.
The reason why Inazuma people don't say anything is out of fear, as we saw at the TCG event. But what bothered me was that Ei was surprised by that.... And that's insulting. She ruined lives AND KNEW IT, it wasn't the Fatuis fault, she knew what they were doing and chose to ignore it. And she hasn't paid half the consequences of her actions.
Even Katsurabe from Kazuha's mission, had a better redemption arc. Scaramouche got a better treatment even!
I really think she's the writers' pet and it's a shame that just has the worst writing because of the waifu factor.
exactly they were so focused on selling the "booba sword" and hid behind flashy cutscenes to sell her
Yeah, that's pathetic and insulting to your intelligence. Trying to sell her via booba sword is stupid and pathetic. Ei needs to pay fully for her actions.
No, in fact, Ei NEEDS to pay for all of her actions with interest stacked on it. All those simps are just brainless monkeys with no critical thinking skills. There's a reason why the other three Archons are far better than her, not just in superior character and story writing, but likeability as well.
This is just a huge example on how to NOT write a character and their story. It's pretty goddamn embarrassing that this was what Mihoyo came up with.
Terrible first impressions.
Im actually glad that there is at least another person who also thought that she was horribly written and thats also the reason why I skipped every of her banners. I was actually excited for her because some if my friends hyped her really up but then I was just left with dissapointment so I decided to just save up for Nahida (and went to C2 because I frigging loved everything about her)
I only grabbed her to complete my archon collection lol
This right here is what scares me about Arlecchino she better not become some candy goblin after being a literal harbinger
play 4.0, your worst fear might be true
Tbh, I am shocked each time I am thinking about Inazuma's quest.
I mean the archon made her people suffer af and she litteraly can walk peacefully inside the city without any consequences of what she did while still being the ruler.
If Genshin wasn't as "friendly" as it is, I'd expect Inazuma's people throwing rocks at her while screaming : "GET OUT !!!"
Pretty much everyone throwing rocks would be executed lmao.
it would be better if they were seeking a way to kill a god, that would've been an interesting conflict in the story.
@@adaimuserazor6362 Indeed but when I said "throwing rocks", it was more like a manner of speech for "rebellion".
Ah yes, let's throw rocks at a god. That will definitely end well. Plus most of what happened didn't affect the normal life in Inazuma. Only the merchants and vision holders were the ones who suffered.
She's their god that they worship, a lot of Narukami residents don't really care about the Vision Hunt Decree and believe she's just doing what's best for Inazuma and go along with it. Even the people who hate the policies still respect the shogun. It's just how the world in Genshin works
I mean if Jeasus came to earth and acted like a dictator, but suddenly he would change and be like "oopsie daisy my bad guys" every Christian would accept him without any second thought
Now it's Furina barely appears in the story and then at the end you are supposed to feel sad for her.
Im so upset that theres no way that she'd ever be fixed also. Like her story would require a whole rewriting of the inazuma archon quest and- i definitely dont think theyll do that
Yeah. Raiden is horribly-written, and she and her story needs to be rewritten to even fix them.
The thing is they won't, Hoyoverse will focus on new areas/characters rather than fixing old ones, they got what they wanted: players revenue :/
@@ozzcoremidmx8287
And it's pathetic and greedy of Mihoyo to not even think of trying to fix her and Inazuma's bad stories. Shows how lazy they are to not even bother TRYING to fix it.
Can you make more of these? Maybe about our grand-strategist Kokomi? Kidding, I enjoy your videos, I like controversy takes, it sets new impulses to think about and I agree 100% with your take on the Raiden Shogun and I think most people see the point you made here
This might be because I’m a Kokomi main, but I feel like her role in the story was severely underutilized and tremendously overshadowed by Yae Miko beyond justification.
@@zSTALKn Trust me, the writers did her so dirty, she has so much potential, but it never got addressed so far. It just bugs me that it is commonly accepted that she is this insane genius strategist, when the writers want to force her into the overworked waifu trope instead
Kokomi the great strategist accepting fake visions from whoever it is resulting in those killing her soldiers by draining their life...
Teppei, never forget.
Fr Kokomi was built up so much and then only had like 2 seconds of screen time
funny how alhaitham is the real genius strategist and he isn't even trained for military like kokomi
finally, this gets talked about!
i always tell my friends that i will never pull for raiden because of this. and i will never come to like her... seriously, after treating her people like that, she gets to walk around lovey dovey eating dango with the traveller? yeah no...
yet they hold a bigger grudge to SIGNORA who only kicked venti.
Yeah, that's stupid and BS. Shows how terribly-written she is.
Hey Soul you legitimately forgot to mention that she was created as a “mommy” sort of “step on me character”, but in her character quest she also serves the role of a perfect, innocent, naive and dumb little girl, who doesn’t know what a photograph is. 🥺🤣🤣🤣🙌🏼❤ She’s was created to be every men’s w*t dream. 🙄 This infuriates me the most probably.
KAHAHHAAHHA
basically
So you expect her to know everything when she hasn't stepped outside for 500 years? Ok dude. Your logic definitely makes sense.
I really hated that they essentially made Ei an idiot.
@@raiden8063 if she isn't aware of anything going on at all then how is she aware of the fatui and shit?
I can't even express the disappointment I felt after playing through the Inazuma quest. You go there expecting the best lore in game, because why wouldn't you? Everyone who plays genshin loves Raiden, everyone says how op she is and how you should pull for her. Surely, SURELY her story must be a banger as well right? RIGHT?
And then you get to Inazuma, where after getting through all the character quests you get to the archon quest finale which feels like:
- Hey Ei, stop it girl c'mon.
- Yea, you're right ok lol.
Thankfully, Sumeru made me forget that part. Hopefully Fontaine is good.
the fact that all miko had to do was talk to her to fix the region was so lame
What really pains me, is the fact that I liked how they went with wanderer's redemption arc, self sacrifice, then going on throwing the past as a new person, that was really good.
But ei feels like more of a sudden, there was no build up, no redeeming qualities, and the worst part is that ei herself acknowledged that she did some missed up shit yet she continued which means she knows that she's out of the redeeming zone, yet somehow everybody especially kazuha just forgot what she did.
I mentioned wanderer and nahida here to address the issue, it's not like hoyoverse doesn't know how to write a character, which makes it even worse, to this day one of my favorite story quests is venti's, it shows how he's still struggling after all these years which makes me respect him even more, and that's right his story quest released with the game so that means they know how to treat a character
Yeah, it's pathetic to see Mihoyo just go shit's creek with Inazuma and Raiden's character and story writing. The writing is so poor and shitty there that it hurts.
@@rickynguyen5108 it almost feels intensional against inazuma, mondstad, liyue, sumeru and hopefully fountain all have a great written characters, inazuma has few but the archon quests didn't help them either shine or get fleshed out which is sad.
@@itsok-kw5jt
Yeah, and additionally, none of the things in the Inazuma Archon Quest are ever acknowledged or mentioned whatsoever, which sucks. Don't you think so? Little of the Inazuma characters had barely, if any, good writing to them.
@@rickynguyen5108 yeah I think this is the cause of the archon quest being as irrelevant as hell, tbh nahida's second quest alone has better writing, and lore imo.
@@itsok-kw5jt
Yeah, the Inazuma Archon Quest, and Raiden's two Story Quests (her first quest (late 2021, early-September) and second quest (early 2022, mid-February), and they BARELY did anything to alleviate the worse aspects of the Inazuma Archon Quest, they only served to make them WORSE), is irrelevant as fuck, and just mentioning it makes me bitter due to how shitty the writing and storytelling on it were.
The other three Archons have far better writing and storytelling to them than the entire Inazuma Archon Quest and Raiden's two Story Quests.
How pathetic and outright embarrassing. Do you think Fontaine will do better than that pisspoor Inazuma?
Fuck, say what you will about Lasengle and FGO, but that has a far superior story than what Inazuma cooked up.
Everything said is unfortunately 100% true. I genuinely would've loved to have a bad person as a playable character but just like you said here I think they thought that she wouldnt sell well even tho I'm pretty sure people would've liked her more that way. I just hope they keep Arlechinno and Dottore as evil and don't try to redeem them because tbh it's kinda hard to redeem a manipulative child groomer and a mad scientist who uses children as subjects.
I skipped her banner literally because of how much the story made me hate her.
I think 50% is more accurate for the video. Some of the things he said is spot on while some stuff was just ridiculous
It's not only Raiden, but the entire Inazuma for me was complete dogshit, nice views and islands but Inazuma was a total shit in terms of lore and characters, the only thing from Inazuma I truly enjoyed and I wanted more was Enkanomiya, my god, it was 10/10
Endou best character in Inazuma
@@snezhnayanpenguin4671 Yep, he was cool guy, wish he was playable. Hah, its quite often when those side characters are more interesting/real than playable ones.
TOTALLY AGREE
@@snezhnayanpenguin4671 He should appear more as one of the Abyss Order's antagonists, he is the Doctor of the Abyss to me.
Raiden Shogun could've been an amazing villain for Inazuma and be the first proper villainous archon. But the way the writers wrote her was so.. sooooo badly executed.
Also, since Soul wasn't able to include what she did to Kujou Sara and Scaramouche, allow me to be the one to do the work for him.
For Kujou Sara, we have to go all the way back before when there were two archons for Inazuma: Makoto, the one in charge of protecting her people, and Raiden, the sword whose job was to kill anyone that threatens Makoto's life. One day, the two archons came across an injured tengu that was on the verge of death. Who was the tengu? Kujou Sara. Now what did the archon sisters do, exactly? Raiden... did nothing. Meanwhile, Makoto saved the Sara from the brink of death, and out of sheer gratitude she vowed to be in service of Makoto because she felt like she had to after her life was saved by the archon herself. Now why is she loyal to Raiden then? Well Sara didn't know that there were two archons, so when Makoto died and Raiden took her place, Sara didn't know that the one who saved her had died. So, when Raiden started acting like a dictator Sara followed her because she still thinks it's Makoto and still feels in debt to her even though Makoto had died long ago. She's basically blindly following the orders of someone who was willing to LEAVE HER TO DIE because she thought Raiden was the one who saved her.
Now for Scaramouche which I don't know much of because I quit Genshin midway through Inazuma and the internet didn't give me much information but basically in an attempt to create a puppet in resemblance of her sister, she ended up making Scaramouche. What did she do to him? Tossing him aside, essentially abandoning him upon his creation, hence why we had Scaramouche the way he was before he erased himself from existence during the Sumeru arc. Imagine being abandoned by the person that gave you life, wouldn't you feel betrayed too?
So yeah, TLDR Raiden is a terribly written character and the fact that she hasn't atoned for her actions does not make her "redemption arc" any better, especially considering what she did to countless people including Sara and Scara. Sorry for the long comment if you stuck around to read the whole damn thing, you're a trooper.
This just further shows that she's terribly-written, and the entire Inazuma Archon Quest and her two Story Quests are crap in writing. It's embarrassing.
Now i dont get why people ship sara x ei even more after reading the first one
How old is Sara? That was 500 years ago.
Did you invent the story of Sara or something?💀 I have never read anything like that ever before. I mean, this is another level of fanfiction. All I read is that Yae Miko had a hand on her joining the Kujou Clan. She also comes to serve the Shogun because she received a Vision that she thought the God gave her. She didn't even serve Makoto. The only Tengu that served during the time Makoto was alive is Sasayuri, the old friend who died in the war against Orobashi.
Just want to inform you that this video's take about Ei's second story quest is blatantly wrong and terribly biased. She finally managed to get proper character development during her 2nd story quest.
Even if we forget the harm she has canonically done to individuals, Raiden was still the sole reason for the civil war that we were shown has devastated Inazuma and caused massive sensless losses on both sides. Even Gorou's hangout acknowledges it... Feels weird that the main story quests do not.
100% agree. After finishing the whole inazuma, I felt something was a bit underwhelming somewhere. As if every citizen in Inazuma IS the puppet.
Okay I agree with you on most points, but I'm at a loss about her fighting the Puppet. She HAD to fight the Puppet to assert control over it, it had nothing to do with her feelings being hurt. The Puppet was created with certain protocols that prevented Ei from making decisions that her old self would disapprove of unless she proved her point via battle, nevermind that the Storm that threatened Inuzuma was a direct cause of the Puppet malfunctioning due to Ei's change in character and ideals. Also the Heavenly Principles are mentioned directly by Nahida, it's a representative from Celestia that oversees Teyvat, we actually saw her literally at the beginning of the game: the Unknown God. But I see your point and do agree that Ei definitely needed more time, but she DID fight the Puppet for 5,000 years as she directly stated, so I'll cut her some slack since if she fought for that long, she's definitely changed
did you like read another story quest because everyone with a brain knows that she fought the puppet because she litterally disrespected her she never fought because she "cared" about her ppl like yall raiden simps claims for her to be
@@chadikhr7258 No, I didn't. This shows that you're just going with the "Raiden Simp" train and not actually listening. The entire purpose of Ei fighting the Puppet, was for control. Ei designed it to act autonomously without her input to carry out her orders and it had protocols in place to prevent Ei from acting against her own previous wishes, which in the 2nd story quest was the reason why the Storm that was over the sea blocking access to Inazuma was getting closer to the nation itself, the Puppet was acting within it's parameters and Ei HAD to prove her resolve via combat in order for the Puppet to allow Ei control over their shared body.(which was why she fought it continuously for 5,000 years) Again, if you don't like Ei, just say that you don't like her, I don't even have her so the "Simp" idea doesn't apply to me, her character is good because it shows how ignorance and negligence applies to even Gods, despite their best intentions
@@chadikhr7258 Did you read another story quest? Because nothing in the text supports that claim. I'm not even a Raiden simp but I can call BS on that as a whole.
Omg finally. I hate Raiden and people always ask me "why." Like bro even if you're skipping through the story did we miss the part where she genocided her nation's own people, stole people's visions, refuses to stop meditating in her plane even though her soul is deteriorating anyway (lol erosion), we never even see any formal apology from her and even less remorse.
Yep. Raiden isn't immortal, just has a long lifespan, and even then her soul is still eroding away.
Not to mention all the problems she has.
She literally fought the shogun for 500 years straight non stop just to change the rules so inazuma doesnt go back to how it was and its the peoples fault for forgiving her even when she was a dictator and had the sakoku decree they still worshipped her prayed to her unlike the ones in the resistance
Again, that's shitty storytelling and writing in a nutshell.
@@orangenade3707 😂it's the people's fault. Let's look on antiquated Japan, then. There's no mention of an emperor in Inazuma, but in Japan an emperor was worshiped as a literal god, being the direct offspring of 'Amaterasu,' who is the sun goddess and highest deity in shintoism.
It's fair to say that Raiden is both the emperor and shogun of Inazuma because no emperor is mentioned. Therefore criticizing her would literally warrant the death sentence. Hell even shoguns would execute peasants who criticized them even though they weren't divine figures.
That said there are cases of the emperor also being the shogun but these roles are normally separate.
The point is, they couldn't criticize Raiden if they wanted to.
@@escapetherace1943 i didnt word what i was saying properly what u just said literally proves that they cant do anything to get rid of raiden so it makes perfect sense of why she is forgiven so easily since the people are unable to do anything to oppose an archon so the most they can do is hope the rules are changed which they are so its dumb to say that “raiden was forgiven so easily shes a bad character for that reason” bc its literally the only thing the people can do
A formal apology wont fix any of the suffering she caused she has to take action to solve the problems she has to get rid of the decrees which she did and make sure they dont come back and she had to fight the shogun for 500 years straight bc she was still pursuing eternity so she did show remorse obv nothing can change what terrible things she did but saying she didnt show remorse isnt true
I was with you until you started talking about her second story quest. There were a few comments before then that were questionable but that entire section just makes me wonder how well you actually remember the events of the story. It was never about the Shogun "disrespecting" her, it was the duality of Ei trying to change Inazuma and move forward, and the Shogun adhering to the old ideas of "stasis" trying to stop her.
Raiden was never intended to be an "evil" character, that's just your perspective. The way you word things in this video makes it sound like she was just doing what she did for no reason which is not at all the case. They moreso tried to create a morally gray character with good intentions but dropped the ball. That flawed execution is worth critiquing, but the perspective of "she's SUPPOSED to be evil so trying to flesh out or redeem her is bad writing" is just extremely weird and fallacious.
I agree Ei was horribly written in the Archon Quest, it was possibly the most unflattering first impression imaginable and made her look incompetent at best. But to answer your question of why people like her as a character, it's because of her actual character and development outside of that, which is why people feel that she has more to her than that section of shitty writing and is why she has so many fans. I'm sure her looks play into her popularity too but you could say that about literally any character; do you think other popular Genshin characters like Zhongli or Hu Tao would be as popular as they are if they weren't attractive?
And I'm typing this as you go on a tirade about how "Everyone who defends her is a simp!". Sure, whatever.
ok simp
@@tliehfloyd9201 No argument or counterpoint, just namecalling. I accept your concession
@@Venat2322ok simp
Good point
I got her before finishing the Inazuma Archon questline and she became one of my favorite characters in terms of gameplay and design. But her story left me really disappointing. A lot of plot points weren't tied and she didn't show any sign of regret for her actions. I also hate how she treated Wanderer. I hope her story quest improves her character , as I haven't played it yet.
Have you played her 1st and 2nd story quest as of now?
They made a tyrannical warlord and then said she's actualy a fanfic reading weeb, literally mentally 12, so it's okay and everyone is friends now. I was bummed by her character assassination, considering Raiden in both GGZ and Honkai always had a clear character arc, they just spat in the face of one of the company's pillars. Sure, she isn't that important in Genshin, but she's still a Raiden expy and should at least deserve some decent treatment. You can easily write a redemption story for her, but it shouldnt've happened so quickly. Sara could've had a character arc, having realized Ei is full of shit and proceeds to aid the Traveller instead of being a fanatic lesbian all the time (now, obviously Inazuma plot happened so long ago, so I don't remember 90% of it, but I think she did "help" us, but only bc one of the Kujou leader for allied with Fatui, not bc Ei was wrong). And the whole thing about "it was actually the puppet, Ei is a good person and she was immersed in her eternity fantasy so she didn't do it" just takes away from the gravity of it all. Accountability where? Ei should've stepped down from her seat as a ruler, as she neglected and ruined her country for nothing, which could've led to Sara taking her place, as Ei sees her errors and Sara development would've been a direct result of Inazuma's finale. That or idk, a some other represantative from one of the Houses. And Yae Miko just giving away Ei's gnosis in exchange for our lives is a bit on the nose. Surely Scara isn't stronger than Yae, to force her to trade, even if Ei didn't want the gnocis after Makoto's death?
Yep, Raiden Mei from Honkai Impact 3rd is far superior to this pathetic and poorly-written expy that it isn't even funny.
Sara as Shogun would've been pretty cool and awesome to see. Imagine if she had been a 5 star.
The first story quest literally showed her not being a fanfic reading weeb by not understanding what Light Novels were about to being with, so you are already wrong in your first sentence.
Thank you! I felt like I was taking crazy pills during her archon quest! People DIED because of her actions, and this went on for years! And no one HATES her?! No one is terrified of her?! I’m just supposed to accept that she was too dumb and traumatized and stubborn to know she was ruining lives en masses? Oh wait, she can’t cook, so that makes her adorable and relatable! Nevermind!
They are still terrified of her, but acted none about it. Compare that to Decarabian, Mondstadt's former god. They are able to usurp him from his throne because of his tyranny. I expected Raiden's SQ to make people completely critical of her, but nope.
Yes! 100 times yes!
She makes a whole country suffer because of her own inability to process loss. Takes peoples hopes and will to live away and starts a civil war when someone tries to stop us. She even kills people and tries to kill us multiple times. (And yes, some of this was done by the puppet but Ei programmed her.) She only cares about her own pain and ignores everything.
Raiden first story quest was almost grotesque. “Tihihi, dango milk.” “Oh I cannot understand the concept of pictures. Is that me? Is that someone else? Oh the confusion”
The second story was better and mended things a little. She battles her puppet and the whole notion of eternity. It’s like a test if eternity or change wins.
Only glimmer of reaction was when Kazuha didn’t want to go speak with Raiden during the test of courage event. Even that was not to disturb our meeting. She killed his best friend. Kazuha was the only thing stopping Raiden from killing us too.
Raiden deserved better storytelling. Either let her be the uncaring cruel force of nature that does whatever they please. Or give her proper redemption arc if they want to clean her up like Scara. At least some regret and growth.
But guess if you pull a sword from your boobs all is forgiven :)
It's pathetic how simple and stupid people can be when seeing a sword come out of their boobs, like a bunch of monkeys.
Seriously, how superficial can people be?
It doesn't EXCUSE or JUSTIFY her actions one bit. Mihoyo really shit the bed with how they fucked up Raiden's storytelling and how they fucked up Inazuma's storytelling in general.
Either have her be a cruel person who does whatever they please or give her a proper and wellwritten redemption arc like they did with Scaramouche.
Liking someone for pulling a sword out of their boobs is a stupidass excuse to even try to justify her actions.
It's funny how Scaramouche apparently has done worse than her in number of crime, but in a way....Scara's crimes and sins trace all the way back to Ei.
The other changes in a well-executed way, the other did not. And yet many simp for her. That explains how narcissists are able to manipulate ppl so well, because their the same type of morons that always fell for their ploys and pretty faces.
As much as I agree with this video, 11:24 is simply incorrect. The Shogun puppet forced her into the duel by taking control of the body because it wanted to make sure Raiden hadn't been subject to erosion. If Raiden didn't fight that duel and the puppet won, it would re-instate all the previous laws that you spent so long un-doing. That fight meant a lot more than it being a case of respect. In a way, you could say that her being forced into fighting the Shogun for 500 years (For her, not Teyvat and the Traveler) is her punishment for her actions. But that is narratively weak, her people absolutely shouldn't have been as calm as they were with her
THIS!!
YESSS, I also agree that Raiden Shogun is soooo badly written but that part in the OG's vid is very misleading and incorrect. Other than that, the Archon Quest's pacing is frickin rushed and Ei's redemption quest didn't really feel impactful at all for the fact that she wasn't really held accountable for all the misdeeds she's done in the first place. Her overall character writing just really sucks. It's so unfair 'cuz most of Sumeru's story writing is so done well that you can't help compare it to that of Inazuma's. I hope that in the anime adaptation, they fix Inazuma's story arc 'cuz it has so much potential and unfortunately it's forever butchered in the game.
Gross ,Raiden simps
I agree with you that she is badly written but there is so much here that makes me feel like you don't remember a lot of the events that transpired. Again you're 100% right that she didn't have to face any consequences because none of it was acknowledged which is dumb as fuck. However for instance the stuff you said in regards to her reasoning for fighting the puppet in the second story quest had me incredulous though. That isn't even the only thing I'm unsure of the accuracy of that you mentioned but it's one of the biggest ones I noticed. In conclusion yes you are right she's the worst written character but some of the stuff you mentioned here just didn't seem accurate.
Also he did the character breakdown with considering any lore so there's that. Saying that raiden did all the evil deeds willingly bcoz she wanted to is quite wrong, all she had ever done was stay in the shadow of her sister and fight on the battlefield. Expecting someone like that to know how to run a country is a bit too much. Also it didn't help that jst after she witnessed how Khaenri'ah was detroyed by the heavenly principles for progressing too much and clearly wanted to protect her country from heading in the same direction, were her methods wrong? YES! But that's coz nobody even taught her the most basic human qualities that everyone else knew. Her whole idea of eternity meaning stasis was wrongly input in the puppet and her believing in what the puppet was doing was right for preserving eternity made her not do anything until the traveller appeared. Also her story quest 2 shows that she is clearly on the side of the people and on a much better and reformed path than the one she took so that fact that she had no development is completely incorrect. I usually agree with Soul's takes on the game but idk how he misunderstood so many things in this case. So yes her character writing is very rushed, and the entire Inazuma arc I think wasn't given enough time to be properly fleshed out. Idk why but there are a lot of things that I think Soul has misunderstood in this video and even tho I usually agree with his takes I can't agree with some of the reasoning that he gives in this video. And why the people forgave her so easily, well idrk, but I saw a comment which I think can explain some of it. The people of Inazuma loved makoto bcoz of how benevolent and they never knew that there were two shoguns and that makoto had died, so they considered Ei as Makoto and thought that what she was doing was probably good for the nation(most of the populus, not all) and maybe that's why they also forgave her actions a bit too easily coz in their view their archon who had run the country properly for centuries was facing problems that she has now resolved.
@@adrishchatterjee8711 There's also again the fact that most people weren't even affected by the vision hunt decree so that could also play large part. Unfortunately they only mentioned this a couple of time rather than really showing it well so I wouldn't be surprised if people forgot. The only time younsee normal people even remotely involved is people who are already apart of the resistance after all.
I'd say after her second story quest she's not the worst written character (that title among the playables is probably Kokomi at this point which is tragic cause I actually like her) but that quest had to borderline retcon her personality to make it happen and REALLY hammer in that she's trying to change in like every line of dialogue to where it almost got repetitive
Shows how deep the hole they dug themselves into with her was lol, but it seemed to work for most people so who am I to judge I guess
@@Riftmansal Kokomi is a sad case to think about; though I did like the dialogue the traveler has with her during that last tcg event. I'm referring to when she talks about not being able to see Watatsumi Island from Ritou(I think it was), I do wish they'd give more focus to that plot line of the aftermath of the war and how much the after effects are still affecting everyone instead of development like that being in events.
I agree, I think her story quest 2 should have been the archon quest interlude along with the ending showing how the conditions change after the war ends. Her story quest 1 however was......yea they need to change that a lot.
im one of the few people who never got to like her. I hated her in the storyline and never understood the fast switchup for her hangout
The only one who acknowledged was the resistance soldier in Watatsumi Island in Kokomi's Story Quest. He couldn't move on right away because he was thinking of his friends who died in the war made by Raiden.
I don’t want the writers to brutally punish or execute Ei. At least put some NPCs or characters who acknowledges her atrocities
I just got to inazuma as a player who started when the game came out. I've been dreading this story arch. I think they greatly covered the culture and closeness of quite a few NPCs but idk how some players just straight simp for her. Especially when most of the islands are uninhabitable because of her. 💀
I believe you are right in the case of Raiden's character. From a human pov, she is like an angsty teenager who possessed too much power for her own good. She only cares about her eternity and have no human regards for the people of Inazuma. That being said, I think she being who she is is mostly attributed to because she is literally a God. And when you look at her from the pov of a God, suddenly her actions make sense. Human lives become expandable as long as her principle of eternity is maintained. After the Inazuma quest, her stubborn personality is still the same. The only thing that changed in her willingness to give a little more liberty to the people of Inazuma.
As for why the people and the game have done very little in addressing Raiden's evil deeds, it does irk me. But once again, if we look from the pov of the Inazuma people, only a few knows Ei and Makoto are 2 separate beings. As far as the public are aware, there has always only been one single God. And that God (Makoto) was described as an incredibly wise and just ruler that Inazuma under her 1,500 years of governance, the humans and youkai were living together peacefully. So despite all the horrible things the present God (Raiden Ei) has done, the people are still largely in awe of her, because the legacy she inherits is very real; without this God, Inazuma would not be what she is today. Their culture, arts, and sword techniques were all origin and very ingrain of this God. So from their pov, Raiden was never always evil. From their pov, she is this incredibly awesome God they have always worshiped who one day just decided to be cruel to her people. Her actions confuse them, and when the sign of her finally turning over a new leaf comes (after Inazuma quest), it was enough of a redemption to them.
Welp, sorry for the long rant. Have a good day, everyone.
It still doesn't justify her actions, though. It just shows how horribly-written she is.
One word **simp**
My brother in christ you are analysing a character you kinda do need to use that lore
Bad person ≠ Bad writing
And people forgiving her easily is not her bad writing that is bad writing of the inazuma story
I love your content but what the fuck was this man
He even summarized her 2nd story quest in the most wrong way possible. Yes, I agree that Ei's mistakes are real and should be acknowledged. But her character development should be acknowledged too, to deny that is completely unfair.
Soul was right, I found a bottom feeder
im pretty sure the reason she's poorly written is because a lot of the writers were on strike during the writing of the archon quest.
holy shit, i have been waiting for someone to point this out, i noticed this from the start but everyone defends her. when she did nothing but take from the people she was meant to be protecting and even i the end she never even did any kind of public hearing to apologize to her own people. holy shit genshin did a great job at making me just hate her guts to the point where i refuse to roll for her no matter how meta she is.
Have you already played Ayato quest? this quest was done so badly that I almost lost my motivation on Genshin impact.
she was in a dark place bro just let her live its not that deep
Just because you had an awful life doesn't give you the right to make others' life awful tho 💀
Wassup dish
Also is this hate bait-? 💀
I think I might've realized a bit late
@@Soul_of_the_Og heyy great video
@@03DevVveD03 yes it is lmao
Man now I regret skipping through most of the Inazuma archon quest, although I paid attention to most of Sumeru’s archon’s quest and loved it. I just listened to the 2nd story quest of Raiden and thought she was redeemed already when there was so much more to her that players didn’t comprehend. Good insight
the amount of time I get arguments from ei stand that "she didn't know" is crazy, its like they made up another version of the story in their heads and gaslights themselves into believing them
I'm still mindfucked after the end of Inazuma's archon quest. Like bro, we are just gonna move on like that from all the rights she violated?
there is also the unjust murder of signora. people always bring up about her death that "oh she said loser would die so it's her arrogance." let's remember a couple things. 1: yes she was behind the delusions PARTIALLY, but so was scaramouche. 2: kazuha's friend challenged her to a duel, he's not considered selfish or arrogant is he? no, it's the RULES OF THE DUEL ITSELF. 3: signora wasn't given time to accept or deny the duel, as we've only ever seen Kazu's friend challenge the shogun herself, not be a referee. Shogun does not even give one moment for signora to accept/deny before she says "proceed." FINALLY. Signora is not really given a choice even if she were to say no. since she is a fatui harbinger, a top ranked military diplomat, the view of her inside the fatui itself, the political respect she has for being such high-ranked would be immediately shut down and she would be treated as a coward. this is the only reason she agrees to the duel, besides the shogun's pressure. then the raiden simps proceed to blame it ALL on the fatui when honestly it's 100% raiden's fault, and then we go on a date. hate it. even with the traveler, he's the arrogant one there. "for venti's gnosis." based off the timeline it was over a year ago, we had a lantern rite, and another was coming 3 updates later, a lantern right is the end of a genshin year, traveler held a grudge for something he didn't even know existed. next, "for the people of liyue you imperiled." last time I checked that was childe who did that, and signora just came at the end to take the gnosis. FINALLY. out of ALL THE HARBINGERS she's done the least amount of wrong. kicked venti, knocked out kujou sara, and is said to have mistreated her soldiers, but then again she gets on scaramouche's ass for doing that. meanwhile scara kills armies of soldiers in inazuma, gets free. childe tries to drown an entire city and gets free. signora is the MOST INNOCENT of the harbingers, and even could have sided with the traveler had the circumstances been different. she fought the abyss, which the traveler does. she witnessed khaenri'ah and is one of the only people not sworn or cursed to secrecy about it. she could have been our biggest lore helper, even more than dainsleif, if we were just able to get her on our side.
Bro relax Signora will get revived in Natlan. The traveler was well aware of what they were doing when they asked for the duel, and while you can try to deny it Signora still accepted the duel, she really was just arrogant and thought she would win.
@@HydraneousHadokenPent-Striker and that's the thing. she didn't accept the duel. traveler goes "i challenge you, to a duel before the throne" and before signora can say a word, the puppet goes "proceed." and then signora just re-iterates the rules of the duel, is kazuha's friend selfish for challenging ei? no, he got executed as well.
? kazuha's friend challenged kujou sara, not the shogun. he lost the duel and was executed by the shogun, just like signora
Don't mind me just leaving the typical comment "OMG IF YOU HATE THE GAME JUST QUIT!"
like i did for star rail, even made a video on it
I never liked Ei from the start. Characters like Raiden, The Diamonds, Princess Bubblegum, etc being easily forgiven by the simp fandoms AND in story after commiting horrible acts is pretty gross. They're all bad people, yet people completely ignore them because "ThEY'Re QuIRkY!". Or they're just pretty/sexy/hot etc. People forget that Raiden stole peoples visions, representations of their wills, their ambitions, the reason they can do so much more in their lives. Objects that are pretty important to people, given during important events in their lives and people just don't remember or care about that. We literally save Thoma from getting his vision stolen, but nah, let's just forget that cuz Raiden pulls sword out of booba 😐she never even says sorry to the people still alive who lost their visions
I agree Raiden's writing was spotty at best, everyone's was in the 2.1 days, but you were extremely off about basically everything you said about the second story quest (the puppet didn't die, Ei didn't even initiate the fight let alone because she "was disrespected", and while she was touched by the traveler wanting to help ultimately she won on her own)
The second quest does kind of fix her character, or at least pushes her to a much better direction; most people who I know who like the character came to like her only after it because of how it showed her growth so clearly it worked for a lot of people, hell I didn't like her either until then
Idk this video makes some okay points but other parts seem kind of weird, saying "I don't care about lore or other text" is a bad take when you're making a character analysis video considering it's important to understanding basically all the characters in Genshin, and on your point of Raiden specifically it kind of doesn't work because her lore actually is brought up in the game as a focal point (end of the 2.1 AQ and her second story quest mainly)
Also pls don't compare to real life dictators or insist if you support one you would support the other for superficial reasons, yeah people who say she did nothing wrong are annoying but like, there are lines too far in the other direction too; almost all of my friends who are Raiden fans have dealt with IRL oppression one way or the other, saying "you would like oppressors if they were hot" is kind of disrespectful to them over liking a fictional purple lady
To me also his take about the first story act is kinda off and doesn't take count on the fact that the most of the people in Inazuma city probably don't know the most of what happened, those that didn't have a vision were kinda neutral about the vision hunt decree so idk what they must knowledge about the Shogun that they don't already know and finally i think we played two different story quest because the people in the city are fearful and scared when they see Ei.
in short, I think that the reactions of the people are well contextualized as opposed to the author of the video's point of view
@@francescodematteis6094 I do think the first story quest wasn't that good for reasons similar but different from what this guy claims, but yeah the analysis kind of leaves out a lot of stuff
There's also claiming that her motivations for what she did are never brought up in the story, which isn't true; like she says outright in 2.1 in the lore dump after her boss fight that she did it because of what happened in Khaenri'ah, which got nuked off the face of the earth for "progressing too much" (supposedly, that's what said but the exact reasons for why Celestia nuked Khaenri'ah are still to be elaborated on)
If you notice most Raiden/Ei haters show a lack of comprehension when it comes to any of her story and spout false information as fact.
Agreed tbh
While I'm quite neutral about Booba-sword lady, there is a reason why she is forgiven easily and it's equally as dumb.
In the story, remember how they struggled to get people to fight the vision hunt decree because it affects so few people? Not only that, but many, AND I MEAN MANY! People of Inazuma took advantage of this and screwed people over like the foreigners and the people who lost their vision and subsequently lost their memories.
I think what they were TRYING to do was show that Raiden realize what a fool she was and was willing to fight a carbon copy of herself for 500 FUCKING YEARS in some special realm to prove that she wanted to change and that is wasn't some flippant choice.
Now after doing so, hearing that your Archon, would be willing to subjugate herself to such punishment for hurting her people like that would definitely make people reconsider their behavior after that which is why so many quests AFTER this even show characters trying to redeem themselves or their clan and not having judgement passed yet because she feels she is not worthy to pass judgement yet.
The fuck-up here was the lack of showing us those facing the consequences of their actions alongside the Archon as well as people choosing to keep the Archon as their ruler. I think they thought that because some of the population was basically unaffected by the decrees that things would be fine and dandy, which is not true.
So some back-and-forth would have been nice to help flesh that out more.
Also to be fair: Despite knowing she DEFINITELY didn't understand what she was doing she THOUGHT she knew what she was doing, but that little "date" you go on, proves how outdated her views on things are and how much she fucked up and didn't understand, remember how cringe it was explaining Light novels to her was?
But the WORST MOTHERFUCKER in this ENTIRE story is Yae Miko, FUCK THAT BITCH. You have the FUCKING EAR of the damn Shogun, yet at no point do you attempt to talk her down and show her why it's wrong and instead let some fucking random guy from out of town handle it? Jesus....
Yae Miko is the friend I would NEVER want to have, abandoning me when I need her guidance most, fuck that bitch, she's definitely responsible for how things got to this state.
The true winners of the Inazuma story is: Kokomi, Yoimiya, and Beidou.
Kokomi was FUCKING UP AGAINST THE DAMN SHOGUN AND WINNING!!!! Love that fish-girl
Yoimiya SINGLE HANDEDLY BROUGHT HAPPINESS TO A NATION OF DEPRESSED MOTHERFUCKERS AND HELPED PEOPLE KEEP THEIR VISIONS WITH FAKES.
Beidou FUCKING JOINS A FIGHT AGAINST THE VERY WOMAN WHO GAVE HER THE VISION SHE HAS LIKE "You guys wanna topple the shogun's horrible rule? Alright bet, where we dropping?"
There was great characters that surely deserve more praise than the damn shogun and her fucking useless ass fox.
As for how they could fix the story after all this time: maybe have a character that is the first to receive an electro vision after the Sakoku decree, and yet REFUSES to take it and arrives all the way in Inazuma to throw it in her face and we go on a lengthy quest to find out why and have her atone for what she did to people not just in her nation but outside her nation. Maybe even have the Fatui secretly hunt down the visions for the clans that were trying to appease the Shogun to gain trust and in doing so had possibly hurt that character in some way.
Wishful thinking on my part though, great video, any chance you might talk about how you would change the story to make it better? Thanks for taking your time to read!
LITERALLY FINALLY SOMEONE TALKS ABOUT YAE MIKO
The ending of the boss fight has to be the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen “Ei this isn’t you 🥺” “oh ok sure Miko damn sorry ig”
You’re telling me Yae Miko COULDVE done something from before but didn’t?????
I think they handled Yae's character WAY better than Raiden. She is just as evil as Raiden, if not more (as you have stated) but at no point in the story do they even attempt to redeem her character in any shape or form. They frame her as this morally "grey" lying scheming fox who puts on a façade you can't see through. And from the way they wrote her especially in her story quest, you can probably assume that she has done far worse than what she was willing to admit without reading the lore. It's in my opinion a very realistic depiction of people in real life of her type. Like Soul also said, I don't hate evil characters. Despite seeing through Yae's antics immediately and knowing full well she is a terrible person, I still really like her and that goes to show that the framing of someone is make or break for the integrity of the writing for them.
I like this idea with the vision thing but isn’t the Celestia the one that gives out visions? The archons just lay the base idea of what makes someone get one but they aren’t the ones that give them.
@@Yoon_gibiased They could work that into the quest, but I think that in some way it is the archon since no new visions were given out for electro during the vision hunt decree...
I'm not super sure though, the lore is kinda wonky there...
Man, I like your idea on how to fix this trainwreck of a story. Far better than whatever the hell we got.
In case of second quest, it was more of the “cuz new worldview of Ei conflicts with original programming of Raiden, puppet tries to seize control and restore things to what they were - so we need to stop her” matter…
This doesn’t excuse Ei’s writing, or redeems her in any bit, but still - ‘tis better not twist “facts” so they would suite your opinion even more.
While I wholeheartedly agree with you that the Inazuma archon quest was rushed, and that the traveler befriends Ei too fast considering of the things she did, I strongly disagree with your unfair mischaracterization of Ei during her 2nd story quest. You mentioned that she has 0 character development, even though in that quest she finally acknowledged how bright and precious are the dreams of her people (after the scene of her fighting alongside the ghosts of past Samurais). Also she didn't confront the puppet shogun just because her ego was hurt. After she has completely changed her views on eternity and acknowledge the importance of her people's aspirations, the puppet shogun rebelled against Ei due to its programming. The puppet wants to return Inazuma back to Ei's flawed ideals of eternity, while Ei is now in opposition against putting Inazuma back to the dark times. That is why they fought, Ei was willing to lock herself up in battle for 500 years for the future of her nation. The deadlock between her and the puppet shogun also serves as a form of consquences towards her misrule of Inazuma. I don't understand how you completely fail to understand Ei's development during her 2nd story quest, it's as if you hate her to the point that you're unwilling to accept the fact she can still change to the better.
Thank you. Crazy that I had to sort by new to see people pointing this out. That entire section of the video had my jaw on the floor and not in a good way.
@@Venat2322 Yeah, ikr. Even though Ei is one of my favourite characters in Genshin, I have to admit that her blunders in the form of sakoku decree and vision hunt decree is highly destructive towards her nation and she wasn't innocent in any way. But even then, some people like this youtuber have flat out denial towards her eventual development into a better person.
It kinda reminds me of Otto Apocalypse
-Simp to his dead girlfriend
-Kills his family
-Become a ruler
-Nuke a city of New York
-Starts the 2nd Eruption
-Child abduction (Sirin)
-Child torture (Sirin)
-Many killing
-Almost start another eruption (ch 9)
-Betray most of his companion
-Almost reset the world 500 years back
-Acknowledge and embrace all what he's doing
The HUGE difference is the other characters acknowledge he's a bad guy, punish him from his wrong doing, regret his actions and he also pay the ultimate price of death.
I can't believe Genshin story telling is this bad.
The worst part is that Kallen wasn't even his girlfriend, she was Yae Sakura's lover lol
I'm not sure if he began to do all those stuff with the sole purpose of reviving her, because she would fall in love with him after or if he just wanted her to live. Still an AWESOME VILLAIN nonetheless, with awesome arc and awesome ending, and the story never ever hides the fact that he did AWFUL stuff, he was always a bad person and a villain, and that never changed, not even when the game made us feel sad for his death, he was still a villain.
@@Luwkna Nah I don't think she's Yae's Lover, there's not enough indication she fell in love with Yae, other than Yae kissing her for giving medicine.
@@pistonfry Well... Okay then, I guess, I thought it was more than just pretty obvious... They kissed in one episode of Cooking with Valkyries, the manga confirmed, and also the quiz event during new year that was a question about Kallen's true love and the right answer is Yae Sakura... Is that enough proof? If it isn't then I'm not fighting you just to proof the point because I'm not stupid, I just thought it was pretty obvious they were lovers
More like raiden have garbage story
I really hope you make more videos like this. I want to see your takes on how mihoyo handled characters like kokomi too
Can you do one about the best written character in genshin impact?
Probably Nahida or Wanderer/Scaramouche. I would love to see that analysis;)
Wanderer prob, or nahida
@@Soul_of_the_Ogdo a vid pleasee
This is something me and buds actually discuss every so often. Notably, because we often talk about the archons and leaders of respective nations cause boredom be damned. I'm not a Genshin nowadays, but reading up on lore and watching insight from different people has lead me back to just questioning Raiden as a character.
Why I like raiden?
Design and she’s voice by one of my favorite VA Sawashiro Miyuki
6:40 I was with you until this. This is a bad take - you can't ignore the "lore" because that's still part of Genshin and it's characters. I get that you only want to count the quest but Genshin is not a book where that is how you take the story, it's a video game and the medium has many ways of delivering character. Just because players don't (to you, an arbitrary 90%) read these supplementary in-game texts, it doesn't mean they aren't part of the game.
I think the way Ei was written in the Archon Quest was terrible but her actual characterization and development is why people like her and feel she's got more to her than the bad writing of the Archon Quest
Your read of her part 2 quest couldn't be more inaccurate. Ei didn't feel offended by her puppet, it was Ei from when she was cold-hearted and traumatized, unwilling to embrace a change to her idea of eternity. That battle was symbolic, and Ei was writing herself off as someone who was ineffective at running Inazuma anyway, and that Miko could do it. It's not a defense, this is just the characterization and it's who Ei is. Liking her for them isn't the same as overlooking her faults
I'm typing this as you childishly write off anyone who defends her as a simp. Sure.
They should've had Makoto's spirit beat her ass in the second archon quest for being a bad ruler since Makoto cared a lot for her citizens.
Wasn't Makoto not a fighter? It could've been cool to see her admonish and give Ei advice but she ain't beating anyone, the only fight she ever fought in without Ei carrying her (Khaenri'ah) she got killed in
Very eloquent manner to describe the flaws with the character writing on both Raiden and Inazuma’s story as a whole. Great video Soul, keep up the great work. 👌🏻🤌🏻
bro we both know i am not Eloquent
@@Soul_of_the_Og lol Well, you do put your thoughts into words better than the average person! 😂
Just take the compliment Mr. Streamer man! 😂✌🏻
best thing she did was create scaramouche
I love how she didn't even know that time was different while she fought the puppet, she straight up thought he left Inazuma without leadership or guidance for 500 years. 😂😂😂 It's so funny how the best archon quest in version 2 isn't even from Inazuma, they got done dirty
"she straight up thought he left Inazuma without leadership or guidance for 500 years" she flat out said that she's entrusting leadership to Yae Miko until she returns.
Heaven principles are the practicaly gods above gods and kinda distroyed like 3-5 nations worth of people and cursed millions but cant stop the abyss
But still ei couldve done somethig else could just make the whole thing beter and stop the war and alot of deaths
Raiden isn't a bad person, she's mentally ill. I agree that was forgiven WAY too easily but she should have gotten treatment and help she needs while she paid for her crimes, like any mentally ill criminal.
This is the most based Genshin video I've seen, I kneel
What i dislike about inazumas story is how confusing it was. I did the quest a bit later than everyone else when it dropped and without people explaining that there are two (three) raidens, i would've never caught on to that by myself. I remember finishing it and being so confused because it just ends.
And raiden's idea of eternity has to be the most backwards definition of eternity. Why would you let the fatui influence and put your citizien in harms way, if not kill them, why a civil war, why steal visions. What about all this is preserving eternity, which would be the 'status quo' wouldn't it? But one look at the traveler and suddenly THEY'RE the treat. The only thing that i guess makes sense in that way is locking foreigners up and out but even that.
And the whole puppet idea was so convoluted. Id have enjoyed it more if the puppet was more flawed so we could FEEL there was a difference between them without having to consulte the wiki.
I don't like Raiden but bruh did you actually do her second story quest because you were wrong about basically everything that happens in it lmfao
Ikr. This is one of the worst takes against Ei.
10:06 THANK YOU!!!! Best video you ever made!!! ❤❤❤ I was telling this all of my friends, when they asked why I hated her. The no redemption p*sses me off too.... 🙄😅🤣🤣🙌🏼 (Scaramouche is one of the “evil characters” I love and you probably too.) Right?
i like scara
lets talk about how xiao is SO traumatized (even more than ei is) yet xiao would NEVER do anything even slightly harmful to his country. why do people think that trauma is a way to excuse evil!? she is just a BAD PERSON. thats it.
to be fair zhongli kinda guided him to a better path hence why he's to loyal to him.
@@senu. do you think that xiao would have ended up like her if he had no guidance? no. there is a VERY clear difference in their mindsets and way of thinking. xiao has always held guilt for things that arent even his fault, even when he was without any help from zhongli. ei very clearly has no guilt if you read her voiceline about thoma. get out of here ei defender
@@noah-qe2wcIt's difficult to take your opinion seriously when you can't even have a normal conversation.
@@raiden8063 difficult to take anything you say seriously when your username shows how biased you are. stop arguing with literally everyone in this comment section it’s embarrassing
@@noah-qe2wcYou can check usernames but not profile pictures? His name references metal gear...
Happy to see I'm not the only person who holds this opinion and has them for the same reason
I think I never gave too much thought about how she acts in the story compared to contemplating how fucked up the region was in terms of the conditions that had to be dealt with. Like, my thought during the story was "Hey, let's beat up this shut-in who doesn't know how to rule a nation, yet is the best warrior of that nation"
there was nothing "fucked up" there bruh
@@vincentiuskwpI will list some of the fucked up stuff.
1) A shit ton of corruption(literally at the start of the archon quest one of the first things that happens is we almost getting scammed out of our money, than a bit later on we are almost tricked into working forever for someone, and in the final act we learn that 2 of the Tri commisions betrayed their God and nation due to corruption, and than when said clans are close to be punished there is someone trying to force one of the member to confess something false so that this person can get political benefits and... yeah I think I don't need to continue listing the rest lf the example to show Inazuma has SERIOUS corruption issues.
2) An literal civ war, with multiple deaths from both sides.
3) the war made so that it was basically impossible to live in 1/3 of the whole country or even just have commerce or... anything productive with that part of the country, this is because that part of the country was being used for the war(Watatsumi and Yashiori inslands) that Raiden made an blind eye on purpose, and also because of an curse released(which by the way, was released BECAUSE of the war).
4) The Foreigners did nothing to suffer what they were passing by, away from everyone and everything they knew without hope of returning, being harassed, judged and explored by locals to the point the Foreigners even united and doing their best could barely survive. And quess who approved the law that made them pass by this and didn't give them time to exit Inazuma before putting the Decree in effect? Raiden.
5) what happened to some vision Holders, even if it is an minority within an minority it still was an destiny for most worse than death itself. Making them lose all their hopes and dreams, forgetting important people, places and things for them. Being crushed by their own feelings as they now have nothing to help them carry this weight as Raiden took it from them, as they are now just hollow shells of who they were. Even if at the time it was an small number, it still was an horrible fate, and if Raiden's reign continued unchanged than even more people would suffer it.
6) The Inazuma economy was getting worse because of the Sakoku decree(for example the woman that sell dresses in Ayaka's quests didn't have materials for the dress Ayaka wanted, so we had to search for it with the Foreigners who still had some in store).
TLDR: Thanks I completely agree, fuck her story and the whole of Inazuma.
I'm so glad you made this video! I absolutely love playing (gacha) games for the story (FGO, Hoyo games, etc) but the Inazuma story line killed Genshin for me up until Sumeru came out. It got to the point where I was ranting to so many of my friends about it that I considered getting into content creation just to slander her.
I remember in version 2.0 I was so excited to see the end of the story because I thought Raiden Ei was gonna have the best character arc yet and that I was gonna love her more than I already did bc of how much I liked Raiden Mei from HI3. Boy was I SO wrong. I absolutely loathe Inazuma and a big part of it is due to her story.
How am I supposed to feel anything when it really seems like her reign of terror only really affects foreigners and people with visions? Every other normal person seems fine, these mfs are holding festivals on the regular. So if normal Inazumans are fine, then why are Teppei and the others fighting? They don't have visions AND they are native to the land. Why should I care about this rebellion??? Speaking of vision holders being affected, is that really the case? Because Itto had his vision taken away but it doesn't seem like he changed in the slightest. Perhaps it's a case by case scenario or maybe playable characters are immune to stripped vision depressive episodes, either way it's stupid.
Not only does it feel like there are NO stakes, in the end Yae Miko shows up and Raiden pretty much immediately concedes like "omg Miko, hiiiii~". She could've had a dramatic scene where she refuses to give up and screams at us about wanting to keep her eternity but instead she hits us with a "ggwp". Almost like Ei didn't even care about her own ambition for eternity... oh wait, it's cuz SHE DIDN'T. THE WORST SIN IMAGINABLE IS TELLING ME THAT HER SECOND QUEST REDEEMS HER IN ANYWAY. SHE OUTRIGHT SAYS THAT SHE BUILT THE PUPPET WITH A FAIL SAFE FUNCTION JUST INCASE SHE GIVES UP ON HER ETERNITY WHICH MEANS SHE STRAIGHT UP NEVER BELIEVED IN HER OWN ACTIONS FROM THE VERY START.
And yeah, if they did want to make her evil then they definitely could have just made her straight up evil. We don't need every playable character to be 'good' or to like the traveler. I want more playable characters who are just menaces, maybe even just a dickhead who is rude to the traveler idk. She also killed off Signora which is sad bc Hoyo doesn't understand that not every playable character has to be alive either. In a gacha game there are always creative ways around it like an event or something that shows us remnants or shadows of the past or something.
I've been saying this for well over a year now, but Hoyo just hates Japan for some reason. The tech otakus are absolutely NOT saving the world.
but I still simp bc Mei expy and Sawashiro Miyuki
agree totally with the fact that not everyone has to redeemed (or alive) to be playable !!! honestly i feel our most ‘evil’ playable characters are scaramouche and tartaglia, which makes me feel like if arlecchino becomes playable she’ll either be redeemed or dead. i dont understand why hoyoverse can’t just make playable characters that arent friends with the traveler !!
@@mazeditsvsf tartaglia is barely an "evil" character, more like grey. He was forced into the fatui by his father, felt into the abyss as a kid, still has some form of humanity. Friends with Yoimiya, Xinyan, Traveler, and cares about kids. He hates his coworkers especially Dottore and Arlecchino.
@@softjytsu that’s why i said they’re the *most* ‘evil’, being slightly morally evil but honestly not really
agree about tech otakus because for Mihoyoverse, it's not the world that the tech otakus will be saving but their money empire.
11:20 okay I agree she was badly handled but this part is so wildly incorrect
Homie straight up did her second story quest with his eyes closed to think any of this
Fair, though strangely I kinda fell a little bad for the puppet?? Like picture her, somebody who has been shown to at least be SOMEWHAT sentient, be destroyed by her own creator cause she still was doing the ONE THING she was made to do, it kinda feels like the puppet did have some free will, and while scaramouche goes on adventure with the grass loli or whatever, the shogun puppet was always used as a tool until found no longer needed, a sentient being who was tasked with doing a singular goal forever, only to be cast aside when it was no longer useful, pitiful, from a certain point of view
@@carlosfunez4036 The Shogun still exists and is fulfilling her role though, just with modified rules as per their agreement when she lost the duel with Ei
Like this guy's just straight up wrong about saying she was destroyed, heck in the end Ei even acknowledges her personhood and says it was wrong to treat her like a tool to which the Shogun says she'll shadow her like Ei once did for her own sister
She also apparently enjoyed the fight as a warrior
@@jaylath7664 oh okay then, I just stopped playing genshin for a while and never finished inazuma, only recently did I pick it up again, sorry
I loved raiden because she was a morally gray character but they fucked up so bad by trying to "redemption" her arc
I hated her story quest, i hated how everyone just said "yeah man lets just forgive the dictator" and from someone who IS from a country that had a shit ton of dictatorships, it was really sad seeing how the citizens would just, forgive her
I am a Raiden fan BECAUSE she was fucked up in the head, i just pretend that the redemption arc didn't happened
Eh, I agree that her writing left a lot to be desired at least initially but parts of this analysis feel very biased and inaccurate
Man, I remember fucking despising inazuma when I played through it all back to back, returning to the game in 2.6
It's surreal how unlikeable Raiden and Miko are. Bitch gets to have her cake and eat it to, fucking zero tangible consequences to her actions.
To this day I'm not sure if the story in Sumeru was good or if I was just excited about never having to set foot in inazuma ever again.
Honestly i just wish they just learn from this mistake and commit to making an evil/morally grey archon in Fontaine
The worst part she didn’t even end up being a badass girlboss villain. It became oh Makoto was the brain and Ei was the brawn that’s why Inazuma been fucked up because Makoto dead and Ei isn’t as smart in canon. Now she’s just canonically the dumber one of the twins it’s not that she’s evil.