i think his issue is with what "do this" means. focalors told her to play the role of an archon. zajef's argument is that the way she played an archon didnt have to be so painful and dramatic.
He always try to appear different and frankly ,he just pulled it out of his ahh this time 😭😭it's embarassing to see this attempt to be "unique" . There was one straight plot in the story 🤦how can he twist the only plot in the damn story.
I think it was the timing of the revelation that made it appear so sudden....but the story had to be in that order for the sake of the big mystery......which was....."there's something odd about furina" and I think they did it nicely becouse i wasn't able to guess it in advance and once it played through.....it made perfect sense and that's why the majority of the people found it to be the best archon quest ever....its really getting to me as I talk about it.@@chiragadwani1875
@_mako furinas pain isnt the amount of effort required to keep the charade going. It was the 500 years of being alone with none to talk to. The 500 years of nobody knowing who you really are
@@Neir4869 this is not a matter about opinions. Is a matter of Zajef being absolutely wrong in several arguments. E.g.: Saying that Focalors/Furina story is the same as Nahida/Rukadevata. That's entirely wrong.
@@Neir4869 its less about opinion but more that he doesn't always seem to grasp the lore. For example he says Neuvilette is written as a character without flaws who doesn't make mistakes or get angry or sad. But Neuvillete made one of the biggest blunders by not preventing the death of Navia's father when he could have done, a mistake he acknowledges and cries over in the archon quest. he says he doesn't like furina because she self inflicted her own plight by acting a way she didn't want to. In reality her plight was inflicted by Focalors when she told Furina if she did not convince everyone that she was the archon then the entire of fontaine would die to the prophecy, that burden and risk is why Furina switched her attitude so fast to appease the people because she did not want to be the reason that everyone would die. There's nothing wrong with zajef not liking a character but most of the time his reasons aren't even accurate to the story, although I do agree with his point that sometimes the way they tell the story isn't as compelling as it could be and can make a character feel like they're lacking in depth
@@HunteR3453Correct, it’s not the same, but when people say “the same” they typically don’t mean a 1 to 1 recreation Both did the same overall idea of “there was an original archon who created the current archon to complete a *task* for the original, ending with the original dying (getting erased in the case of sumeru)“ Their stories are different yes, but with context and in reference to the two archons part, they’re very similar so he is not entirely wrong I’m also not trying to be rude, please don’t take it that way, and if I missed anything major or misinterpreted your statement do let me know
@@tete-rh5xoI agree with your second point, although Zajef says there are multiple ways to interpret it, of course we can’t tell what the characters feel So in that sense I respect his opinion for her story, as it’s a valid way to interpret it If furina outright said why then it’d be a different case As for Neuvillette, I completely forgot about that, thanks for the refresher lmao
True, because it was about the whole region and it's people erasing People needed an active Archon up there so they can have a little bit of hope that they will be saved by the Archon Other Archons have powers which people have seen and known about, furina couldn't show any power to her people because she doesn't have any So that acting of an Active Archon who is up there and happy and not worried Gave comfort to the people in a way So they don't panic
There are a lot of points to be made about Furina's behavior to rationalize her on-the-spot 180 and win back the people's faith in THE Hydro Archon because first impression is lasting impression(there's a whole lineage of families who regularly visit her because of her phenomenal first impression as the Hydro Archon, shown in the quest too, where she accidentally cried). Zajeff's just being silly and purposefully undersold her character and rated her poorly for the sake of generating discussions. Because I think it's already VERY clear how well Furina was written(asides from her story quest) and there should be no reason to question her motives and behaviors like that otherwise.
Nodays you all just love to throw these words like "well-written" around like any of you even know what that even means . You all just associate that word for the characters that you like. Furina's character was completely irrational, the qualities she displayed and the dedication she has contradicts her whole thing which was " BEING HUMAN". I have no clue where do the archons(simpy higher dimbetional being) or furina even get their love for humans 😅. Raiden was the only one that made any sense since she didnt understand human frailty and weakness so she wished to enforce her ideal( an ideal of a being unfazed by trivial things) which was stasis through eternity, then again she got bamboozled by power of friendship and thats ruined too. Even nahida who apparently a lot of fandom considers pinnacle of genshin , was plain stupid. Like what?? She was imprisoned for 500years , there was noone to make her understand humans or implant in her why she should stand for them. The arrogant humans went against their god and imprisoned her yet her reaction to that was just like " Oh well".
@@fly8668 were you playing the same game as us? Furina/Focalors inherited the love for humans because her predecessor Egeria harbored so much love for her oceanids that she fulfilled their wishes to become humans, and by proxy, harbored the love for humans and their values as a race, as a community, as a nation under her reign. Hell, Focalors was at some point a close oceanid familiar to Egeria too, so there's no reason why Egeria's love wouldn't affect her to do the same. To be fair, no one said that "Nahida was the pinnacle of Genshin. It's just that the Sumeru chapter was written so much better than the Inazuma one that they considered it such a great step up, narrative wise. Even so, Nahida was snapshotted from the same image as Rukkhadevata, who loved her people just because they were HER people. The leylines carry elemental energy and memories throughout Teyvat to the Irminsul, and she's a branch of it. She very well could have learned love, and various other concepts, through that immense amount of knowledge from memories alone. Rukkhadevata even loved Deshret's children and tried to alleviate their suffering of forbidden knowledge because they're the children of her friend. She's just that capable of love. Nahida studied humanity through the Akasha system and just grew fascinated by them. To say that she loves them is to speculate, but there's no doubt that she would love to save them and get to know more the society around her. She's a curios little child, and children don't need to be rational all the time - not even adults can be rational all the time. With how poor your English is, I wouldn't doubt that you'd have a hard time grasping the writing of this game. The game went above and beyond to write those characters, so the word "well-written" is suitable to describe them. Maybe they just went a bit too high up 'cuz clearly it all flied over your head, if you caught any of that, you wouldn't be here making that comment.
Yes but even ignoring if that she was “forced”into acting that way, She was still incredibly annoying so for that she is unlikeable. Playing a character or not
@@Bananabananagaminghe has a lot of weird story takes, i remember he didnt like cyno’s first story quest cause he equated cyno stopping the trading of forbidden knowledge to stopping a drug trade that which the family was using for income(???), i cant remember exactly cause cynos first story quest was like 1 billion years ago but yeahh….
Anything besides game mechanics is a no no for him. It is like getting an opinion regarding combat and TC from a casual whale mobile player, unrelatable and very surface level of analysis or even any. He's also a contrarian for the sake of disagreeing with people so I don't think it is that deep.
@@Malinzobut Kuki is likeable though? I know it’s an unpopular take, but I hate Itto and his useless gang with passion, and Kuki is the only one I like out of them all. I wouldn’t call her my favorite Inazuma character, but she’s reliable, always calls Itto out on his bullshit and she’s also the one who always has to clean up after these guys make another mess
What ?!!! You do realize that she does not need to convince them ? what proof do they have to prove that she’s not an Archon ? just because they have different personality?!! and why would she need to prove anything ? Here, let me quote it for you. “ Shouldn’t a god be all-powerful ?” -Frustrated Audience member- If Furina want to convince them she’s powerful, then she wouldn’t need not to convince them anything. only insecurity people try to prove themselves. just like how irl bully try to prove how strong they are when in reality, they aren’t. keep in mind that this shit happen in the span of a minute, and you’re telling no one was suspicious about her did a completely 180 ? “Haha ! I was just testing you ! to see if you’d actually follow the puppet, had they claim the ownership of the opera !” It just doesn’t work. like.. you expect me to believe that ? everyone somehow suddenly bought it !?? no one questioning it at all ?! they all turn into an idiot ball ???!! This is the exact reason why it’s not compelling. because it does not make sense.
"Furina chose to inflict this upon herself" Focalors telling Furina that the entire nation will die if she shows even slight doubt in herself being the real archon: Yeah, 3 people were shown, but do we believe that the travel from Liyue to Mondstadt is a 10 minute sprint? Teyvat is more of less 1:3 scale, the Opera Epiclese would have thousands of people and every little thing carries around the entire capital city in a manner of hours.
He's pretending Furina is a pseudo intellectual that has critically developed thinking skills. The whole point of Furina is that she doesn't know what she's doing, so she puts on an act to reflect the fucking Opera. It's really stupid and he lacks to ability to view things through a character's perspective through their writing and that's probably why he hates so much of them.
@@Bananabananagamingyeah, and focalors also said furina was basically a new born human. Obviously she wasn’t literally a baby or a kid, but she definitely lacked experience and very likely maturity while having to carry out a huge task with the fact that if she had failed to hide the truth to even one person or committed a small mistake, it would have ended up with the destruction and death of her entire nation. So even if it was literally just three people, it would still make sense
@@BananabananagamingI mean I agree but no need to be rude though lol. But yeah Furina is definitely one of if not the best written character hoyo has done in this game, and the argument of “only 3 people” I mean I don’t that was the point the writing team were trying to get across, but that there was doubt among the crowd, and since the entire nation was at stake here she couldnt risk it, so then Furina immediately pulled the haha I was joking and started talking all prideful was a cool move imo.
Why would a self-inflicted tragedy be any less compelling or interesting than a societal one? What? Is that how we appraise how good or bad we should feel for somebody? That is the most dumbass opinion I have heard about Furinas story. In fact, I feel even worse for her because she felt that there was no other way out, where there clearly was! It makes things a lot more interesting to me story wise. It also gives a lot more characterization to Furina than a situation out of her control would. Except for hating Inazuma, I know that anything that zajef hates I will in turn like. His story opinions and in turn character opinions are so mixed in with these weird and wild out of story "facts" that he presents as facts that happened while in the story those things are not even hinted at. Its like he is trying to read between the lines because he knows that good stories can be read into, but always misses the point.
Personal preference is a thing, you don't really need to understand why someone like/dislike the flavor of a thing, it have nothing to do with what you like/dislike.
@@None38389 Well you don't really need to understand why I hate his opinions on a story then right? Why even argue that? It's just cyclical logic. We can discuss opinions you know?
zajeff is a very "blame society" kind of person. he is anti guns, anti police (generally, not like US exclussive), anti patriotism and all that. His politics are hard left and he projects them onto the Genshin world and story. So it's no suprise that he dislikes Furina for example who is a person of power and not a straight "victim of society", to him it undermines the real "victims".
For furina, the other archons have shown their powers to get the respect without the "personality", the only one that initially failed to do so was nahida and we saw how that ended and even for nahida she was found in rukkadevata's place. Furina had to convince everyone without any kind of divine power, and she found that acting that personality was working with the audience in fron of her.
this is also not even including the fact that she had such little knowledge abt anything. she was very childlike. she didnt even know the full story of the prophecy. why are we expecting her to act based on how we wouldve done it after knowing the entire lore of the game
No disrespect to Zaj, but I feel a decent amount of his character related takes are almost just contrarian takes lol, most of the characters he likes are ones you rarely hear about, which is fine if he genuinely thinks they are interesting and can back up why he does like them, but also the Neuvi and Furina takes don’t make that much sense for example. Anyways hey if the guy thinks so thats his opinion and his channel and stream so let him I suppose.
that whole Beidou argument was insane bc visions are more than just weapons 💀 a lot of characters just use them in everyday life as tools to make things easier! also it wasn’t like she was just “selling the gun” to anyone… that was the whole point of the tournament to weed out the less suitable candidates for the masterless vision and just like the chatter said it wasn’t even her idea to hold the tournament she was doing it on behalf of Kazuha lmaoo
Your last take is really something… Imagine hundreds of people dying in a crowd crush during a concert due to poor planning and the event organizer just says:”Well, it’s not my fault, the musicians asked to organize this!” and we are supposed to blame the musicians.
@@renjie8910 well we can certainly imagine it! cause what you’re describing is an entirely different scenario that didn’t actually happen in the game lmfao
And besides, even if the person got the vision it's not guaranteed it would glow and work for them. And if it did end up working for them, that wouldn't be that different from the normal scenario where someone obtains a vision. If both cases, the result of a person getting elemental powers is up to the same authority.
They are very opposite characters though? Cyno is literally a corrupt cop who assualts people for petty crimes and is incredibly arrogant. Wrio is corrupt in the way that he takes measures to make sure the people under his rule has easier lives. I despise cyno but love wrio. It makes sense
@@vladshome idk, both wrio and the fortress are very distasteful to me bc they come off as pro prison propaganda (you're free to disagree, it's just how i feel). i just found it funny that he compared beidou and the vision to guns but he doesn't see absolutely anything wrong with meropide lol. also cyno being a "corrupt" cop is news to me 🤷🏼 and "easier lives" is p funny bc the people in the fortress cant even have guaranteed nutritious (since it's food gacha with melusine slop) meals without breaking their back producing mass weaponry + the money they get from it is worthless outside of the prison making it all the more complicated to reintegrate into society but i digress haha edit: forgot to add- it would be "fine" if they wanted to represent irl prison situations to fantasy gacha land but we have paimon yapping about how cool the labor camp is and how she wants to come back and omg traveler WE get good food unlike those criminals :/ ! and dont think about lanoire and the plot holes she brings, wrio knows everything but he let a child stay there for years for funsies. again though, personal opinion
@@rainbowatsummit I DEFINITELY see the pro prison stuff and when I played through I felt similar too. But I remember watching Zaj play and he also made fun of that paimon on line in specific. But for me I don’t really connect that to wrio as a character. He himself seems to be a good guy. As good as he could be for someone in charge of a structure like that. At the end of the day it’s a prison for criminals yk. Also maybe corrupt wasn’t the best description for cyno. It’s more like he’s the perfect example of ACAB. Sticking to the book, incredibly strict. He is incredibly inhumane and violent towards (what I consider petty crime) criminals without worry about their situation. And while he might express sympathy for them verbally, his actions never have that care or mercy. He’s the only five star I own that I regret pulling. It was genuinely that off putting for me
@@vladshome yeah i do see your point in general re: cyno (it's funny bc we're kinda opposites since i like him and you don't lol and viceversa with wrio), a lot about his writing left me scratching my head and though i like him for his goofy side i understand why as a whole his characterization can be off-putting, it's something that i actively have to ignore to enjoy the parts of him i do like lmao (though i dont think he's quite THAT bad, but that is a matter of personal perspective of course). i def don't blame anyone for liking wrio either bc i can see why he can be likable (he's pretty funny, laid back and easy going, has interesting relationships with a few characters like sige neuv and clorinde), it's just that he's so intrinsically connected to the fortress that i cant get past it personally (especially bc hes explicitly the "king" of the place with hands and eyes everywhere and if he wants someone dead he'll have it or w/e his SQ said, yet when it comes to the bad stuff genshin hand waves it cause they want dark, serious stories but dont want the playable characters embroiled in it bc gacha money. which is a problem even neuvillette and furina have considering how much of a cesspool fontaine is with crime child trafficking etc yet they're never shown to acknowledge it let alone do anything about it but im going off the rails now lol). this is more of my personal musings but i'd like him a lot more if he was shown to be a morally gray guy that doesnt care about overhauling the system bc his situation isn't precarious anymore and he's content with where he's at (or they didnt have paimon & co constantly glazing him and the prison. if that wasnt there i feel like it would go over much better and i would see it the "dude's doing the best he can" way too without this weird dissonance between what we're told and what we're shown). it is genshin writing though so i'll keep living on hcs haha
Using real world gun analogies as an excuse to hate beidou when genshins a death world prettied up with anime aesthetics is an L take I wasn't expecting from zajef
@@_mako he tweeted several times about Chevreuse and talked about Clorinde on the stream. Maybe you heard him saying "i don't know what's worse, her big ahh hat or her being a cop"
Media illiteracy people try not to defend garbage writing challenge (impossible) And yes, Theorycrafter play the game and people plays the game for different reason. shocker, isn’t it ? but oh well, what do I expect from an individual with no media literacy in the first place ?
@@nanathedelta8561 "noooo, this person likes this thing that I very much dislike!! Clearly they have *objectively* poor media interpretation skills because I am incapable of recognizing inherent subjectivity in media consumption!!"
It makes sense when you understand zajef and other communists view of the world. Criminals are just victims of society, they HAVE to rob people to put food on the table, they cant choose to be something else instead because society prevents them.... somehow. The vision thing was probably him just tunneling in hard on his hatred of guns in the hands of civilians instead of only criminals who get them illegally. This is what happens when you don't think for yourself and just copy every political view from your party of choice.
Says he doesn't like when devs force a character at you to simp for them and he then puts itto on the list. Itto is good and I think he's funny. But he is definitely forced into a ton of events
@Lesterberne Being friends with the ruler of a country is even more effective than having a license. Also, you'd only need a license if you were operating a store. Also, also, You shouldn't need a license. "The right to bear arms" doesn't say "if you buy from a place the government has given a license to."
@@Squashua2727technically true because because most guns are sold in USA, but most civilized countries don’t sell guns to anyone, you need a license which involves a background check. What do you mean, just because she is a pirate (not even, she’s more a privateer) she has no sense of morality? If she was presented as a ruthless pirate then sure, but she’s not, she definitely wouldn’t be happy if someone used the vision to I don’t know kidnap kids for example. All this is to say she’s at best not very responsible. They definitely could write it better.
This man is almost the embodiment of: "That one friend that doesn't like ANYTHING" 😂 Like wow I didn't know he disliked so many characters. It's his opinion of course but idk why I was surprised lol.
Thb most people don't know Venti and Zhongli are Archons most don't know Nahida even exists and Raiden the only archon everyone knows has an outward persona that was a bigger dick than Furina ever was.
And somehow also more incompetent and harmful to her people then a freaking Dragon Sovereign that was reincarnated barely a year ago and came on duty with presumption towards all humans as usurpers.
*Genshin archon quest be like:* Focalors: "should your identity be revealed, then all hope will be lost." Furina: "how will I do this?" Focalors: "You simply need to play the role of a god as humans imagine them to be" Zajef: "Why did Furina listen to the people in the audience of her accession speech? Is she stupid?" Like Focalors literally tells her to be the Archon the people want, of course she's gonna put the people's perception of herself over anything else when the fate of everyone is in her hands.
In my opinion it's hard to say that someone is overthinking a story because media literacy is all about being able to critically look at and analyze a piece of media, however I still think Zajef pulled the Beidou and Furina takes outta nowhere
@@omnipresent_lightbulb yeaaa, like i guess you can assume some things but unless they’re not 100% confirmed, you shouldn’t stress sm about them when it’s really not that deep (like with beidou, which I believe is an oversight on his behalf, cause a vision from what I remember wouldn’t work unless it’s in capable hands)
@@CukiCookiebut the whole point of the tournament is to find someone capable of activating it, the thing is anyone was allowed to enter even someone with malicious intent, which makes her a not very responsible person, this is probably an oversight from the writers because she definitely wasn’t characterized as a irresponsible person
@renjie8910 Celestia gives visions to people with "ambitions". that person could probably kill babies in their freetime, they're simply given to people who have the potential to ascend to Celestia and become Gods. Whoever would have won the vision needed to be the most powerful, and in Beidous eyes that was enough for them to wield elemental energy. This tells us that she's very caring, as Kazuha wanted anybody at all to activate the vision and Beidou wanted to help him. Also Beidou is literally a fucking pirate who illegally distributes medicine are you idiotic
@@omnipresent_lightbulb Media literacy is a cope that twitter commies use to overanalyze and insert their politics into places where they arent meant to exist. This is a game made by chinese people, someone looking at it with a western lense looking for western political concepts is at best gonna find false positives.
so we go from "what character i like" to "what character personality i like" to "what character story i like" and back to "what character personality i like" again then "what character i want them to be"
The take on Lynette was absolutely horrid, like excuse the girl who got tr@fficked for not being great at expressing her emotions.💀Also she absolutely LOVES her brothers, she willingly roped herself in whatever they were doing with Clervie, despite knowing she might die along with them if caught.
He said in the video that it ruins it for him when they make scenes with characters just to make you simp for them. This is a totally understandable argument, he's not saying this to stand out. These horny baits are all over gacha games and they do get really annoying over time.
@@retrakor no one who actually played through the story would come to the conclusion he did about furina she was explicitly told she must have everyone fooled and the whole nation was reliant on her and he thinks her going over the board at first and ending up maintains the facade was over the top lol
@@retrakor The parts about him not liking the fanservicey characters aren’t what my initial comment was talking about not liking nilou/ayaka because they are bland is a popular opinion It’s the other ones I was talking about
In defense of Furina, it is glossed over too much that the personality of Furina was essentially a newborn when she was brought to the Court of Fontaine. Not in terms of mental capacity but in terms of actual age and experience with dealing with people, especially when it comes to negativity. Her being bombastic and switching up on a dime makes sense in that context.
@@iker9095 And she cannot show how weak she actually is. The people doubted her because she acted like an human leader. And not like an archon. So what can she do to convince them as fast as possible that she is an archon? Not with her none existing elemental powers. Or her knowledge. She had to act like an archon. If we look another Archon: Venti: He doesn't want to be a leader. But the people still pray to him and think very highly of him. They won't assume he is bard with an alcoholic problem + stealing his own Harp and destroying it. If the people would see somone like him as their archon they would doubt him too. But unlike Furina he can use his power to give a feeling of safety. Furina cannot. So the only thing she can do is act like a good (or what she thinks how a god acts). I think Zajef ignores this very important detail. Just because the Archons bahave normal doesn't mean their people think they would behave like this. This could be done by pretty much any Archon.
@@joe_simon yeah, that’s also what I said in another comment. People seem to forget that archons aren’t seen as a drunk bard, a grandpa who likes to say oswantheus wine, a uwu anime anime waifu who likes desserts(I hate myself for saying that) or a cute cabbage baby. They are seen as all powerful gods who won a war against other gods and now rules the entire world as leaders of powerful nations
This is exactly what I was thinking when he was talking about her, like she looked like a young adult but had the mental age of a toddler at best and was never given the opportunity to mature and grow as her own person. A nervous and anxious toddler would absolutely switch their behavior at the first sign of resistance, maybe not as drastically as Furina did, but she was dealing with the people of Fontaine for crying out loud, the nation of drama and exaggerations, she wouldn’t have fit the nation she was presiding over if she was less dramatic. Just say that you didn’t like how she acted when she was pretending, that’s understandable. I think Zajef spends too much time comparing these characters to how real people act, when they’re just pixels on a screen. Sure they might be exaggerated and overly tropey, but what are you really expecting from an anime-style Gacha game lmao
I notice he hates any character that is in any way kind of rude or mean Bro How the hell is lynnette an asshole Every character on his list would be the type of person to have never flipped their behavior card back in elementary school
The take on Lynette was absolutely horrid, like excuse the girl who got tr@fficked for not being great at expressing her emotions.💀Also she absolutely LOVES her brothers, she willingly roped herself in whatever they were doing with Clervie, despite knowing she might die along with them if caught.
8:08 after almost a year, in retrospective, I kind of understand Zajef's take. It's not the fact that she was pressured, imo that is enough motivation, it's the fact that they didn't show it to be that convincing? Because my current interpretation is Furina saw some people doubt her in her debut as an archon, took those as a sign she was doing bad (immaturity and insecurity? Jumping the gun a bit?) and changed her personality. Which was a dumb choice but it is part of her character. It is her flaw that it is self-inflicted. And we know she wasn't this all-knowing person from what Focalors said. None of this makes it "bad" writing. This is the approach they showed. Now, would it absolve her of "guilt" in her own suffering if we were shown that the majority were losing faith bc of her not being dramatic? Yes. Is that how she is written? No. So, like I read in comments over the years "just because the story is not written how you want it, doesn't mean it's bad"
Listening to his critique of Neuvilette characterization made me remember Shenhe. Writers put in her character all of these things that really make you believe that she is not sociable at all: deadpanness, complete lack of reading the room, aggressiveness and inappropriate directness.
Furina was the first archon who needed to fill the boots of her predecessor. Ball took over the country in secret and Nahida wasn't even allowed to try. Weirdly, Folcalor didn't help Furina in any way. It could be because of the prophecy, but it's never clearly stated so Zajef's reasoning is still possible.
Zajef: give these characters flaws Furina: *has flaws* Zajef: what an annoying little shit 10/10. These takes are so impressively bad it looped around and I enjoyed the video.
The moment he said "furina did it out of insecurity and it was self inflicted" i realised he either completely ignored the best ever archon quest in the entire game or just forgot about it ..or maybe he just want to sound different and doesn't care what he's saying to achieve it.🤦🤦🤦 the word "insecure" implies that the matter at hand is personal whereas furina had to do it she was given that responsibility by the archon if she'd let people doubt her as her first impression it could literally mean the end of fontainians.....its not being insecure its being responsible specially where the consequences are severe. You dont have to always be different. Becouse some things are universal and "the main plot" u cant sound unique where the plot is straight forward. 😭
I like Zajef because while i dont agree with everything he says but because of the way he words his feelings I am able to see things from a different perspective and understand media better. Hes also very intelligent, i feel like people esp gacha players consume media and dont really critically engage with it in the way he does.
100%. i disagree with a lot of his takes, but after he talks about why he feels that way, i can understand the train of thought. people saying "he's just being a contrarian for the sake of it" aren't actually listening to what he's saying
@@baizhu Most people would agree if he does the same, but if you ever seen him interacting with others on stream or podcast he has a tendency to argue even the smallest things and rarely try to understand others and just chalk up it up as others to wrong or misinformed than the topic itself being subjective and open for different views and interpretation.
yeap EXACTLY people get mad at his takes but I don't agree with him a lot of the times but the logic tracks so I can't even be mad since he has viewed things differently to begin with, it's a little stupid to flame someone u disagree with just bcs they see things differently
the thing about the '3 people had doubts about furina' take is that in a vacuum yeah zaj is right but in genshin 3, it basically means that every time we are told to "talk to everyone" we talk to 3 people/groups of people I do think it would've been better if they zoomed out with all the lights turning on and a bunch of incoherent voices mumbling the same thing wouldve been better storytelling but genshin has set a standard of 3 =all so I don't think the way it was presented was unreasonable
my man Zajef should just stick to theorycrafting, because these are definitely the takes of all time lol. Contradictory is putting it lightly, some just sounds straight up nonsense lmao
I agree and disagree with the furina take. Yes it's one her turning things up by a 1000 with her speech but at the same time she was told that everyone would die if they know she's not a real archon. That and the fact that she is basically a child when it come to knowledge of the world, she never been through anything like this, she have no experience putting up with resistance from others so of course her first instinct is to steer away as far as she could from what was perceived as the wrong way and somehow that stick
But as time goes on she should've atleast learn some of the basic knowledge cuz her from the first day she was an archon to like the present (while she was still an archon) was basically the same. It's as if she's only been alive for a week
@@vector_619she barely interacts with most people outside of her workers and even then those are just formal interactions. She already made her public persona that people knew for generations and was probably too late to change it since a sudden change of personality will most likely create suspicion. She also knew if she made a small mistake, it may kill everyone in Fontaine
@@iker9095 she could interact with people outside of workspace but she's too scared that people will think she's a sham yet she acts very childish infront of neuvilette like almost all the time not caring about getting her cover blown. She could try acting more normal overtime yknow, she doesn't have to go from 1000 to 0 overnight, like when she have those meet up thingy with her people, she could try showing her people a bit more emotion, try to relate to them, make the people think she's a leader, an archon but just because she's a god doesn't mean she can't act more humane. There's a reason leaders try to relate to the people from time to time and not just keep the high and mighty status 24/7. People would love her more if she can make the people think she's one of them. And if she did went through this route the moment she got caught that she's actually just a normal human being people won't immediately feel betrayed. Once you set yourself up as this omnipotent can't do no wrong image in people even the smallest bit of mistake will make people question your authority.
@@vector_619 she puts an act on neuvillet too and that’s her entire persona she created, what you said makes zero sense. And she did bond with people in those meetings and even going to help them personally. The entire point of her act as an archon is that the image she portrays is what she thinks is the most convincing one and the one of a charismatic leader even tho it ended up not being like one, focalors literally tells her to become the god that people think would be and most of archons don’t act like humans for the general public (we know that is not true because we met them, but most people don’t); barbatos overthrew a god and defeated a dangerous dragon and then left the people rule mondstad; zhong li defeated many gods and suppressed many dangers while making an annual appearance in the form of a divine dragon to share his wisdom; the shogun is known as an all powerful warrior that defeated many big threats for her country; rukkadevata is known to save her nation with her own sacrifice(people think she sacrificed her og body, but it’s close enough) and is also an extremely intelligent goddess who made her nation prosper; none of her references are shown to the public as normal humans but capable leaders or strong warriors that are far superior to any mortal being. Also the fact that she was a new born human means that she didn’t have knowledge on social interactions or how to act properly and the feedback she received at the beginning was the one that stuck with her
@@vector_619 Her entire time off-work was consumed by research, she only interacted with people who were helping her on that - scientists, people who also don't have much in terms of social contact as shown by any that we interacted with
I think Zajef's perspective on characters is pretty reflective of his profession and general mindset. As a theorycrafter, he's a pragmatist and looks at things objectively and logically, mathematically in a sense. If something attempts to play at emotions in exchange for being slightly unreasonable or incoherent, it doesn't work for him, which is a fine outlook, it just happens to be completely opposed to how Genshin likes to write its characters
This comment makes absolutely no sense because I don't think intentionally misunderstanding a story like what he did with Beidou is logical or mathematical. It's just not paying attention.
The reason furina had to act up and be overdramatic is because her audience was not human. The people of fontaine were water spirits who looked at the drama and the romance and the ups and downs of human life and wanted that for themselves. From the beginning their notion of humanity was one born of drama. The people of fontaine wouldnt have accepted a normal archon because the people of fontaine arent normal. They hunger for drama and the thrill so much that even their courtroom is an opera house where they can feast their souls on the emotion provided by the trial. Furina landed in the unfortunate role of having to placate these people and the sad part isnt the effort she was putting or anything like that but instead that furina could not talk to anyone about the whole situation. The sad part of furinas story isnt the 500 years of masquerade but instead the 500 years of solitude. Of being the centre of attention but ultimately alone
Also holy shit 11:43 he says make neuvillette get angry or sad but in the quest its literally raining half the time and multiple times its noted that in fontaine it rains whenever the hydro dragon gets sad. Do theorycrafters like actually play the game?
@@afridge8608exactly??? AND he feels immense regret for letting navias father get killed. But he still has 'no flaws' apparently. It's unbelievable that he plays this game as his job honestly.
The Hearth House department in which she grew up, which was shown both in the teaser and in the quest, is located in Fontaine. In the flashbacks that was talking about Crucabena methods, room designs are also Fontaine like🤷🏻♀️
@vampiranya9939 sorry, I realise I misremembered. I just checked and she said "this is simply the land where I was raised", however I'd still argue that since she was trapped in the house at all times as a child, I wouldn't consider that to be the same. Since then, she's probably been between Snezhnaya and Fontaine a pretty equal amount, so to say she's Snezhnayan is valid in my opinion, though she does claim herself to be a fontainian she does also outright say its a lie so she obviously doesn't even see herself as a true fontainian
@@AdamB_29 well, she said that her being! native! Fontaine is a lie, but even in teapot she referred like "what Fontaine in his right mind would refuse..." something along the line.
in teyvat you can already get a vision randomly and if beidou gives someone a vision and it lights up then they sooner or later would have gained a vision on their own too, so not really a problem where it goes cause you can't control it anyways moreover someone else (celestia) has FULL control over it.
2:12 yeah, a gun thats is basically digitally locked and will inly be operable after youve registered the firearm and payed your taxes ( you're a worthy vision holder) And at that point, its celestia's fault if the vision holder uses it for harm
Disagree with Beidou thing (a vision is not always a gun, look at Diona and Yoimiya, they mostly use it for daily life, and not to fight - so do many other characters. It's just the gameplay is battle-focus, but most characters don't even fight that much). I actually tend to like same characters as zajef (I like Navia and Yoimiya a lot though, Yae and Beidou too, as for Bennett - no, Jean instead). Also like Sigewinne, Lynette and Lyney.
A vision isn't always a gun, are used for daily life, and not do fight. You are just forgetting that the said vision is being rewarded by a battle tournament. 💀💀
Even if its a gun, who cares? Teyvat is a very dangerous place most people leaving the cities are armed in some way or else they die at the first monster attack. This take is completely influenced by zajefs IRL political views and makes no sense for a medieval fantasy world.
@@thelordhu3200i don't think it's a death battle tournament but more of a fun recreational pirate thingy traditions but with just a vision as reward. And didn't they say that they are looking for someone 'worthy' to reactivate it, and they just tried if a tournament winner can be a worthy activator of it. Plus, human tournaments and battle stuffs are not new on genshin. It sounds unethical to us but in teyvat society it's probably normal to risk life on things. Eremites do the same, fontaine law has duel to fight for your name. Even Inazuma has a duel before the throne that the archon actually take the losers life. And we're going to the nation of war where we'll even see more of those duel and tournament stuffs, even hosted by the god herself. Comparing to those, i could say Beidou's event just fine
Neuvillettes biggest flaw or mistake i guess is when he put the audience in danger when the whale showed up and failed to protect his people. Had to rely on childe to lure it away from the audience while neuvillette attacks straight at the whale in the direction of the audience. He acts irrationally without thinking, as shown in his story quest too.
there's some interesting takes that i don't agree with but i love that zajef recognizes how welll written venti is, i love his characterisation the most too and the recognition of how zhongli and are opposites indeed kept me so interested in how different archons handle Their nations based on their beliefs etc.
I mean, i know Genshin isnt the best at storytelling, but it's not like we can't really get what the story's trying to tell, and specially in media like videogames, and considering the (possible) writers conditions in the company, i think it kinda takes some interpretative good-will. With that said, jef saying that Furina changed her way because of 3 people in the audience was so fucking funny, like, it's so obvious that it wasn't what the storytelling was trying to get across. But anyways, its not like hoyo is just a indie smol bean company, so they could definitely make more effort in the storytelling
Vision are given to very niche people that are deemed worthy by the gods and possesses an upright ambitions (notice how there is no vision holder that are considered pure evil). Guns on the other hand are not by default considered bad but it's how you use it. I quite get the comparison but the difference is guns are accessible to basically anyone while visions aren't. And it's safe to say that people blessed with vision wouldn't use it for harm or anything. I don't think beidou's intentions is purely illogical and unethical, 'cause first, a masterless vision wont regenerate power just easily unless it recognizes the worthy person first (Ningguang and Mona for example) and Vision is practically a very valuable tool especially on the world full of monsters, elemental stuffs, and a lot of going on. Being a basic human def has low survival rate on teyvat realistically. And almost anyone aspires to be blessed with vision.
is he really gonna complain about gun laws in an anime game when the character in question is a pirate, like bro 😂 also furina acted different from the other archons because she herself never was an archon to begin with, she’s human, she made human mistakes, and had to live her life terrified of those mistakes becoming problems. that’s why her personality morphed into something so dramatic. i honestly think furina has the best character development in the entire game
I can see the pattern here. He likes characters who are modest in life, as most of them are already content in life and some of them are striving for realistic goals.
“if a character has a scene that makes me simp for them then i like them less” what exactly does that mean to zajef??? bc not everything is fanservice and zajef is already a very contrarian and negative person especially when it comes to genshin so i feel as if he could be grasping for straws to continue to shit on characters
Zajef's take on furina's story is soooo fucking bad lol, he always gaslights himself into misinterpreting the lore somehow. "Neuvi doesn't have a flaw" okay so he didn't do neuvi's story quest or pay attention to anything related to him in the archon quest lol, this is what i mean when i write that he gaslights himself into believing his headcanons for the characters are real when they're not.
7:10 there's a lot of misunderstanding about the Fontaine archon quest because people just miss shiz, like this point here. There weren't 3, there were many, like 10 or smt - and we're supposed to infer by the proportion of the seats highlighted by the spotlight just how many in general. There were 3 different voices, yes, but the spotlights show how many people shared the sentiment and there were proportionally a LOT. But I also think a lot of other aspects of this story like Focalor's plan, and especially the themes of theatre, justice and water, that are integreted into the story, are not appreciated as much. Just how well these things are integrated into the story WHILE enhancing entertainment (not reducing it) is truly a massive achievement. Irrespective of whether you loved Fontaine archon quest or not, imo it's a story telling masterpiece and it makes me a bit sad that I think it's generally underrated despite it being the most loved archon quest thus far. (And I say this having watched no less then 15 to 20 full playthroughs by different people). I think a story can be very "well written" in terms of the characters and philosophy it portrays but it can still be a 0/10 if it's boring - and I am fascinated by how Fontaine is extremely entertaining while being well written.
"Make neuvillette feel things" BRO ITS A WHOLE THING THAT HE GETS SAD ALL THE TIME AND DOESNT SHOW IT, THE WHOLE HYDRO DRAGON DONT CRY SAYING IS BECAUSE HES SAD
At first I was very intrigued to know Zajef's thoughts on characters and lore because I've never seen this side of him, but after a while I'm just like ummmm... that's fine I guess?
I might disagree on some of the characters he likes and dislikes, but on the whole these are some incredibly based takes. I'm so used to reading and hearing the same boring simp takes for these archons quests that are written terribly, that it's nice to see someone who can see through the BS. I agree on the Furina take and I would also go on to say that her role in Focalors plan was entirely pointless and unnecessary. There is no compelling reason presented as to *why* Focalors needed to hide away for 500 years, just some vague allusion to "deceiving the heavenly principles". But what is there for them to notice? What is stopping Focalors from doing exactly what Furina did? Why is she unable to be the public facing archon? This plan of hers is not explained nearly enough, if it even is at all.
Agreed. It's not even Furina, it's the higher level circumstances surrounding her. Like, Focalors could totally be in Furina's place. There was no indication that she had to be inside the judgment machine for it to work and she would be near it all the time anyway. Why couldn't she be the archon? At the end of the story they would just judge her instead of Furina.
Genuinely asking, why does Zajef make this game his full-time job when he says 90% of the game isn't for him? Not even trying to hate, I just think it's bizarre? As someone with a stable job, I can't stress how much of a bad decision that is. And he always seems grumpy and tired, or at least always a contrarian who can never talk about things he genuinely enjoys.
Bro hates all the good characters 💀 these takes are Abysmal. Though I actually agree with him on Furina specifically. Her suffering was her own doing. All she had to do was just do what every other archon does and just not care what others think of them.
This is just wrong. Furina was a human and doesn't know how a "god" should act. Focalors herself said that furina should instead act as a god that the public views them to be. She tried being humble and down to earth, but that didn't go well. The citizens immediately became skeptical about her during her ascension day.
@@lekoesic Oh no, two people said she was different from the last archon, oh no... nobody else was complaining. Also, Focalors never said that she should cater to the people. She only said "Make people believe you're the archon." Not her fault that Furina misinterpreted that. The people weren't even saying "she's not the archon." They were merely saying her personality is different.
@@JosepiThe13th There are many things you said that aren't correct and i'm not good at formatting things nicely so i'll just point them one by one: 1. Focalors told furina to act as the god that humans perceive them to be. Furina being a human and having the mind of one herself, would understand how they imagine gods are. Focalors' exact words from the quest were, "What you must do is not turn yourself into a real god, but act as a god humans imagine them to be." Zajef's argument of "furina should just act as a real archon" directly contradicts Focalors' instructions in the story. And then i want you to tell me, how should a human who has no recollection of her godhood past understand how a real god acts? if focalors ' divinity truly wanted furina to act like the ideal archon, she definitely would've told her somehow. 2. There were not simply two people who showed doubt. You can see as the lights gradually turn on, it represented the situation that there were many people in the seats that expressed their skepticism and flat out questioned if she was a puppet by the maison cardinale. With that out of the way, even with the number of NPCs in the audience showing doubt, just because there are only a couple of dozen doesn't necessarily mean only a few dozen people were skeptic. You do realize this takes place in a game, and people's devices have limited storage spaces. They can't just put actual accurate numbers of how many people would be inside the opera. Refer to the scene in liyue where the supposed entire citizen of the country would gather to greet rex lapis. Only around a dozen NPCs were shown. Does this mean there are that few people in Liyue? this argument is completely missing the whole point of the scene, that is to show that the people in the opera were skeptic of furina. The whole POINT of furina acting is to not let a single person doubt her and possibly uncover the truth. Which is why it is such an incredible feat, that she managed to fool the entire nation into thinking she's the actual archon, dispelling all doubts.
I KIND of get what he was trying to say with furina, and while I do agree that it sort of felt rushed, Furina had no previous experience with acting as a god for people, or people in GENERAL, and she doesn’t have any powers to support her claim as Fontaine’s new archon. She quite literally couldn’t have done anything else but switch and do a full 180, because in her eyes if she even messed up a little bit and her people got even a small bit suspicious, the prophecy would be fulfilled. So she, with no other choice in her mind, acted as eccentric and crazy as she thought a god would act, and stuck with it.
This guy should stick to theorycrafting cause holy his lore/game takes are bad. But even in TC, his takes are questionable lmao. I don't know how so many people trust this guy.
For me the top 3 are: Mondstadt: Venti, Razor, Klee Liyue: Xingqiu, Chongyun, Zhongli (I like most of the liyue character not gonna lie) Inazuma: Raiden, Yae Miko, Gorou Sumeru: Wanderer, Cyno, Tighnari Fontaine: Lyney, Freminet, Furina (I like a lot os characters here too)
Zajef throwing an AOE taunt
Tingyun would be proud
I saw Kaveh in the list and all is forgiven.
He watched Iyo takes about WuWA before this video.
Id argue that furina didnt put herself in that situation even a little bit. She was straight up told "if you dont do this, everyone will die"
i think his issue is with what "do this" means. focalors told her to play the role of an archon. zajef's argument is that the way she played an archon didnt have to be so painful and dramatic.
The only thing that made sense to me out of whatever he said about Furina is that her story was a bit rushed.
He always try to appear different and frankly ,he just pulled it out of his ahh this time 😭😭it's embarassing to see this attempt to be "unique" . There was one straight plot in the story 🤦how can he twist the only plot in the damn story.
I think it was the timing of the revelation that made it appear so sudden....but the story had to be in that order for the sake of the big mystery......which was....."there's something odd about furina" and I think they did it nicely becouse i wasn't able to guess it in advance and once it played through.....it made perfect sense and that's why the majority of the people found it to be the best archon quest ever....its really getting to me as I talk about it.@@chiragadwani1875
@_mako furinas pain isnt the amount of effort required to keep the charade going. It was the 500 years of being alone with none to talk to. The 500 years of nobody knowing who you really are
There is a reason why we split "LoreCrafters" from "TheoryCrafters", this video is proof of that.
Oh now this guys doesn’t have the same me opinion me and my friends have! He shouldn’t talk about lore whatsoever and just stick to theorycrafting!!
@@Neir4869 this is not a matter about opinions. Is a matter of Zajef being absolutely wrong in several arguments. E.g.: Saying that Focalors/Furina story is the same as Nahida/Rukadevata. That's entirely wrong.
@@Neir4869 its less about opinion but more that he doesn't always seem to grasp the lore. For example he says Neuvilette is written as a character without flaws who doesn't make mistakes or get angry or sad. But Neuvillete made one of the biggest blunders by not preventing the death of Navia's father when he could have done, a mistake he acknowledges and cries over in the archon quest.
he says he doesn't like furina because she self inflicted her own plight by acting a way she didn't want to. In reality her plight was inflicted by Focalors when she told Furina if she did not convince everyone that she was the archon then the entire of fontaine would die to the prophecy, that burden and risk is why Furina switched her attitude so fast to appease the people because she did not want to be the reason that everyone would die.
There's nothing wrong with zajef not liking a character but most of the time his reasons aren't even accurate to the story, although I do agree with his point that sometimes the way they tell the story isn't as compelling as it could be and can make a character feel like they're lacking in depth
@@HunteR3453Correct, it’s not the same, but when people say “the same” they typically don’t mean a 1 to 1 recreation
Both did the same overall idea of “there was an original archon who created the current archon to complete a *task* for the original, ending with the original dying (getting erased in the case of sumeru)“
Their stories are different yes, but with context and in reference to the two archons part, they’re very similar so he is not entirely wrong
I’m also not trying to be rude, please don’t take it that way, and if I missed anything major or misinterpreted your statement do let me know
@@tete-rh5xoI agree with your second point, although Zajef says there are multiple ways to interpret it, of course we can’t tell what the characters feel
So in that sense I respect his opinion for her story, as it’s a valid way to interpret it
If furina outright said why then it’d be a different case
As for Neuvillette, I completely forgot about that, thanks for the refresher lmao
About Furina:
She did inflict it on herself, yes
Because a slightest slip up can ruin everything in her eyes
True, because it was about the whole region and it's people erasing
People needed an active Archon up there so they can have a little bit of hope that they will be saved by the Archon
Other Archons have powers which people have seen and known about, furina couldn't show any power to her people because she doesn't have any
So that acting of an Active Archon who is up there and happy and not worried
Gave comfort to the people in a way
So they don't panic
There are a lot of points to be made about Furina's behavior to rationalize her on-the-spot 180 and win back the people's faith in THE Hydro Archon because first impression is lasting impression(there's a whole lineage of families who regularly visit her because of her phenomenal first impression as the Hydro Archon, shown in the quest too, where she accidentally cried). Zajeff's just being silly and purposefully undersold her character and rated her poorly for the sake of generating discussions. Because I think it's already VERY clear how well Furina was written(asides from her story quest) and there should be no reason to question her motives and behaviors like that otherwise.
Nodays you all just love to throw these words like "well-written" around like any of you even know what that even means . You all just associate that word for the characters that you like.
Furina's character was completely irrational, the qualities she displayed and the dedication she has contradicts her whole thing which was " BEING HUMAN". I have no clue where do the archons(simpy higher dimbetional being) or furina even get their love for humans 😅. Raiden was the only one that made any sense since she didnt understand human frailty and weakness so she wished to enforce her ideal( an ideal of a being unfazed by trivial things) which was stasis through eternity, then again she got bamboozled by power of friendship and thats ruined too.
Even nahida who apparently a lot of fandom considers pinnacle of genshin , was plain stupid.
Like what?? She was imprisoned for 500years , there was noone to make her understand humans or implant in her why she should stand for them. The arrogant humans went against their god and imprisoned her yet her reaction to that was just like " Oh well".
@@fly8668 were you playing the same game as us?
Furina/Focalors inherited the love for humans because her predecessor Egeria harbored so much love for her oceanids that she fulfilled their wishes to become humans, and by proxy, harbored the love for humans and their values as a race, as a community, as a nation under her reign. Hell, Focalors was at some point a close oceanid familiar to Egeria too, so there's no reason why Egeria's love wouldn't affect her to do the same.
To be fair, no one said that "Nahida was the pinnacle of Genshin. It's just that the Sumeru chapter was written so much better than the Inazuma one that they considered it such a great step up, narrative wise. Even so, Nahida was snapshotted from the same image as Rukkhadevata, who loved her people just because they were HER people. The leylines carry elemental energy and memories throughout Teyvat to the Irminsul, and she's a branch of it. She very well could have learned love, and various other concepts, through that immense amount of knowledge from memories alone. Rukkhadevata even loved Deshret's children and tried to alleviate their suffering of forbidden knowledge because they're the children of her friend. She's just that capable of love. Nahida studied humanity through the Akasha system and just grew fascinated by them. To say that she loves them is to speculate, but there's no doubt that she would love to save them and get to know more the society around her. She's a curios little child, and children don't need to be rational all the time - not even adults can be rational all the time.
With how poor your English is, I wouldn't doubt that you'd have a hard time grasping the writing of this game. The game went above and beyond to write those characters, so the word "well-written" is suitable to describe them. Maybe they just went a bit too high up 'cuz clearly it all flied over your head, if you caught any of that, you wouldn't be here making that comment.
Yes but even ignoring if that she was “forced”into acting that way, She was still incredibly annoying so for that she is unlikeable. Playing a character or not
A shitton of nuclear takes, but the Furina and Beidou ones were the most atrocious. Uncommon zajef L
Also most of his opinions are just contrarian for the sake of it
@@Bananabananagaminghe has a lot of weird story takes, i remember he didnt like cyno’s first story quest cause he equated cyno stopping the trading of forbidden knowledge to stopping a drug trade that which the family was using for income(???), i cant remember exactly cause cynos first story quest was like 1 billion years ago but yeahh….
Anything besides game mechanics is a no no for him. It is like getting an opinion regarding combat and TC from a casual whale mobile player, unrelatable and very surface level of analysis or even any. He's also a contrarian for the sake of disagreeing with people so I don't think it is that deep.
Not really uncommon since some of his opinions on the story are worse than even the xinqiu takes
>uncommon
Never watch Zajef takes on anything not related to theorycrafting lol
bro is playing this game out of pure spite at this point. cant even fatom liking more then a total of 15 charachters
its interesting to me that he plays this game so much when he actually hates 99% of the characters
not everyone loves their job
Its his job to play a kids game, what a world we live in
🤑🤑
@@kare1797 i dont think gacha and kids game dont make sense together.
People play for different reasons man? Y u hatin for no reason😭😭
Bro is complaining about the ethical implications of gun distribution by a freaking outlaw pirate.
I mean, Beidou does jobs for the government (Ningguang), she is more of a privateer
And then putting kuki as likeable xd
@@Malinzobut Kuki is likeable though? I know it’s an unpopular take, but I hate Itto and his useless gang with passion, and Kuki is the only one I like out of them all. I wouldn’t call her my favorite Inazuma character, but she’s reliable, always calls Itto out on his bullshit and she’s also the one who always has to clean up after these guys make another mess
@@CarlynnLu Oh, Beidou's definitely doing jobs on Ningguang's privates.
@@Andrewkin77 Poor Kuki. She should leave Itto behind.
Other archons have the ability to convince anyone that they are the archons. Furina didn't even have a vision. Her persona was the only thing she had.
What ?!!!
You do realize that she does not need to convince them ? what proof do they have to prove that she’s not an Archon ? just because they have different personality?!! and why would she need to prove anything ?
Here, let me quote it for you.
“ Shouldn’t a god be all-powerful ?” -Frustrated Audience member-
If Furina want to convince them she’s powerful, then she wouldn’t need not to convince them anything. only insecurity people try to prove themselves. just like how irl bully try to prove how strong they are when in reality, they aren’t. keep in mind that this shit happen in the span of a minute, and you’re telling no one was suspicious about her did a completely 180 ?
“Haha ! I was just testing you ! to see if you’d actually follow the puppet, had they claim the ownership of the opera !”
It just doesn’t work. like.. you expect me to believe that ? everyone somehow suddenly bought it !?? no one questioning it at all ?! they all turn into an idiot ball ???!!
This is the exact reason why it’s not compelling. because it does not make sense.
"Furina chose to inflict this upon herself"
Focalors telling Furina that the entire nation will die if she shows even slight doubt in herself being the real archon:
Yeah, 3 people were shown, but do we believe that the travel from Liyue to Mondstadt is a 10 minute sprint? Teyvat is more of less 1:3 scale, the Opera Epiclese would have thousands of people and every little thing carries around the entire capital city in a manner of hours.
He's pretending Furina is a pseudo intellectual that has critically developed thinking skills. The whole point of Furina is that she doesn't know what she's doing, so she puts on an act to reflect the fucking Opera. It's really stupid and he lacks to ability to view things through a character's perspective through their writing and that's probably why he hates so much of them.
@@Bananabananagamingyeah, and focalors also said furina was basically a new born human. Obviously she wasn’t literally a baby or a kid, but she definitely lacked experience and very likely maturity while having to carry out a huge task with the fact that if she had failed to hide the truth to even one person or committed a small mistake, it would have ended up with the destruction and death of her entire nation. So even if it was literally just three people, it would still make sense
@@BananabananagamingI mean I agree but no need to be rude though lol. But yeah Furina is definitely one of if not the best written character hoyo has done in this game, and the argument of “only 3 people” I mean I don’t that was the point the writing team were trying to get across, but that there was doubt among the crowd, and since the entire nation was at stake here she couldnt risk it, so then Furina immediately pulled the haha I was joking and started talking all prideful was a cool move imo.
What do you expect from someone that probably skips dialogue in stories.
Isn't furina the human part of the archon ? You mean a human couldn't grow sense in 500 years to slowly change the mask into something that fits her ?
Why would a self-inflicted tragedy be any less compelling or interesting than a societal one? What? Is that how we appraise how good or bad we should feel for somebody? That is the most dumbass opinion I have heard about Furinas story. In fact, I feel even worse for her because she felt that there was no other way out, where there clearly was! It makes things a lot more interesting to me story wise. It also gives a lot more characterization to Furina than a situation out of her control would.
Except for hating Inazuma, I know that anything that zajef hates I will in turn like. His story opinions and in turn character opinions are so mixed in with these weird and wild out of story "facts" that he presents as facts that happened while in the story those things are not even hinted at. Its like he is trying to read between the lines because he knows that good stories can be read into, but always misses the point.
Don't expect a communist to sympathize with individuals they only care about collectives.
Personal preference is a thing, you don't really need to understand why someone like/dislike the flavor of a thing, it have nothing to do with what you like/dislike.
@@None38389 Well you don't really need to understand why I hate his opinions on a story then right? Why even argue that? It's just cyclical logic. We can discuss opinions you know?
zajeff is a very "blame society" kind of person. he is anti guns, anti police (generally, not like US exclussive), anti patriotism and all that.
His politics are hard left and he projects them onto the Genshin world and story. So it's no suprise that he dislikes Furina for example who is a person of power and not a straight "victim of society", to him it undermines the real "victims".
this video took 10 years off my lifespan
For furina, the other archons have shown their powers to get the respect without the "personality", the only one that initially failed to do so was nahida and we saw how that ended and even for nahida she was found in rukkadevata's place.
Furina had to convince everyone without any kind of divine power, and she found that acting that personality was working with the audience in fron of her.
Agree.
this is also not even including the fact that she had such little knowledge abt anything. she was very childlike. she didnt even know the full story of the prophecy. why are we expecting her to act based on how we wouldve done it after knowing the entire lore of the game
Bro's opinion anything story-related is absolutely cooked.
No disrespect to Zaj, but I feel a decent amount of his character related takes are almost just contrarian takes lol, most of the characters he likes are ones you rarely hear about, which is fine if he genuinely thinks they are interesting and can back up why he does like them, but also the Neuvi and Furina takes don’t make that much sense for example.
Anyways hey if the guy thinks so thats his opinion and his channel and stream so let him I suppose.
FR
@@Radiant450he tries so hard to be a hipster lol.
@@Radiant450 All of it is just his stupid political opinions affecting his enjoyment of fiction.
What political opinions and which characters?
that whole Beidou argument was insane bc visions are more than just weapons 💀 a lot of characters just use them in everyday life as tools to make things easier! also it wasn’t like she was just “selling the gun” to anyone… that was the whole point of the tournament to weed out the less suitable candidates for the masterless vision and just like the chatter said it wasn’t even her idea to hold the tournament she was doing it on behalf of Kazuha lmaoo
Your last take is really something…
Imagine hundreds of people dying in a crowd crush during a concert due to poor planning and the event organizer just says:”Well, it’s not my fault, the musicians asked to organize this!” and we are supposed to blame the musicians.
@@renjie8910 well we can certainly imagine it! cause what you’re describing is an entirely different scenario that didn’t actually happen in the game lmfao
And besides, even if the person got the vision it's not guaranteed it would glow and work for them.
And if it did end up working for them, that wouldn't be that different from the normal scenario where someone obtains a vision. If both cases, the result of a person getting elemental powers is up to the same authority.
someone who hates cyno for being a cop liking wrio is hilarious ngl
They are very opposite characters though? Cyno is literally a corrupt cop who assualts people for petty crimes and is incredibly arrogant. Wrio is corrupt in the way that he takes measures to make sure the people under his rule has easier lives. I despise cyno but love wrio. It makes sense
@@vladshome idk, both wrio and the fortress are very distasteful to me bc they come off as pro prison propaganda (you're free to disagree, it's just how i feel). i just found it funny that he compared beidou and the vision to guns but he doesn't see absolutely anything wrong with meropide lol. also cyno being a "corrupt" cop is news to me 🤷🏼 and "easier lives" is p funny bc the people in the fortress cant even have guaranteed nutritious (since it's food gacha with melusine slop) meals without breaking their back producing mass weaponry + the money they get from it is worthless outside of the prison making it all the more complicated to reintegrate into society but i digress haha
edit: forgot to add- it would be "fine" if they wanted to represent irl prison situations to fantasy gacha land but we have paimon yapping about how cool the labor camp is and how she wants to come back and omg traveler WE get good food unlike those criminals :/ ! and dont think about lanoire and the plot holes she brings, wrio knows everything but he let a child stay there for years for funsies. again though, personal opinion
@@rainbowatsummit I DEFINITELY see the pro prison stuff and when I played through I felt similar too. But I remember watching Zaj play and he also made fun of that paimon on line in specific. But for me I don’t really connect that to wrio as a character. He himself seems to be a good guy. As good as he could be for someone in charge of a structure like that. At the end of the day it’s a prison for criminals yk.
Also maybe corrupt wasn’t the best description for cyno. It’s more like he’s the perfect example of ACAB. Sticking to the book, incredibly strict. He is incredibly inhumane and violent towards (what I consider petty crime) criminals without worry about their situation. And while he might express sympathy for them verbally, his actions never have that care or mercy. He’s the only five star I own that I regret pulling. It was genuinely that off putting for me
@@vladshome yeah i do see your point in general re: cyno (it's funny bc we're kinda opposites since i like him and you don't lol and viceversa with wrio), a lot about his writing left me scratching my head and though i like him for his goofy side i understand why as a whole his characterization can be off-putting, it's something that i actively have to ignore to enjoy the parts of him i do like lmao (though i dont think he's quite THAT bad, but that is a matter of personal perspective of course). i def don't blame anyone for liking wrio either bc i can see why he can be likable (he's pretty funny, laid back and easy going, has interesting relationships with a few characters like sige neuv and clorinde), it's just that he's so intrinsically connected to the fortress that i cant get past it personally (especially bc hes explicitly the "king" of the place with hands and eyes everywhere and if he wants someone dead he'll have it or w/e his SQ said, yet when it comes to the bad stuff genshin hand waves it cause they want dark, serious stories but dont want the playable characters embroiled in it bc gacha money. which is a problem even neuvillette and furina have considering how much of a cesspool fontaine is with crime child trafficking etc yet they're never shown to acknowledge it let alone do anything about it but im going off the rails now lol).
this is more of my personal musings but i'd like him a lot more if he was shown to be a morally gray guy that doesnt care about overhauling the system bc his situation isn't precarious anymore and he's content with where he's at (or they didnt have paimon & co constantly glazing him and the prison. if that wasnt there i feel like it would go over much better and i would see it the "dude's doing the best he can" way too without this weird dissonance between what we're told and what we're shown). it is genshin writing though so i'll keep living on hcs haha
@@vladshomenot genshin player slandering anubis cop for corruption 🤣
Using real world gun analogies as an excuse to hate beidou when genshins a death world prettied up with anime aesthetics is an L take I wasn't expecting from zajef
he tries really hard to be original with his takes
bro he hates Chevreuse and Clorinde because they are "cops" 😅
@@colinrichardson9537 pls did you see him say this?
Extremists do be like that
@@_mako he tweeted several times about Chevreuse and talked about Clorinde on the stream. Maybe you heard him saying "i don't know what's worse, her big ahh hat or her being a cop"
Zajef is NOT beating the "theorycrafters dont play the game" allegations because wtf are these takes 💀
when it comes to story he turns off his brain
because all those are braindead takes
They're not takes, they're opinions 😭
@@rocrod430 they literally mean the same thing. Giving your take is the same as giving your opinion.
Media illiteracy people try not to defend garbage writing challenge (impossible)
And yes, Theorycrafter play the game and people plays the game for different reason. shocker, isn’t it ? but oh well, what do I expect from an individual with no media literacy in the first place ?
@@nanathedelta8561 "noooo, this person likes this thing that I very much dislike!! Clearly they have *objectively* poor media interpretation skills because I am incapable of recognizing inherent subjectivity in media consumption!!"
Beido. A literal pirate, yet her "moral problem" was 'handing out an inactive vision'
It makes sense when you understand zajef and other communists view of the world. Criminals are just victims of society, they HAVE to rob people to put food on the table, they cant choose to be something else instead because society prevents them.... somehow.
The vision thing was probably him just tunneling in hard on his hatred of guns in the hands of civilians instead of only criminals who get them illegally.
This is what happens when you don't think for yourself and just copy every political view from your party of choice.
I'm gonna pretend I didn't watch this video
Says he doesn't like when devs force a character at you to simp for them and he then puts itto on the list. Itto is good and I think he's funny. But he is definitely forced into a ton of events
putting Itto in the list when his trope is just ohhh stupid funny silly muscular guy weewoo
That whole Beidou yap made no sense at all
Ill still put her on my top liyue for sure
Definitely nonsense. Most guns irl are sold by people who don't know the buyer. Complaining that a PIRATE sold a weapon? What, hahah?
@@Squashua2727they need a license
@Lesterberne Being friends with the ruler of a country is even more effective than having a license. Also, you'd only need a license if you were operating a store.
Also, also, You shouldn't need a license. "The right to bear arms" doesn't say "if you buy from a place the government has given a license to."
@@Squashua2727technically true because because most guns are sold in USA, but most civilized countries don’t sell guns to anyone, you need a license which involves a background check.
What do you mean, just because she is a pirate (not even, she’s more a privateer) she has no sense of morality? If she was presented as a ruthless pirate then sure, but she’s not, she definitely wouldn’t be happy if someone used the vision to I don’t know kidnap kids for example. All this is to say she’s at best not very responsible. They definitely could write it better.
You can always count on Zajef to have the worst lore takes ever
That Beidou take is definitely one of the takes of all time. What does he think of Diona's vision then?
This man is almost the embodiment of: "That one friend that doesn't like ANYTHING" 😂 Like wow I didn't know he disliked so many characters. It's his opinion of course but idk why I was surprised lol.
"a vision is a gun" worst possible take on visions tbh
it just kept getting worse
Didn't even put Aloy as his favorite Colorado character.
Thb most people don't know Venti and Zhongli are Archons most don't know Nahida even exists and Raiden the only archon everyone knows has an outward persona that was a bigger dick than Furina ever was.
Sumeru people know lesser lord kusanali wdym
@@wuaduhsiapa bro has clearly not done her sq1
And somehow also more incompetent and harmful to her people then a freaking Dragon Sovereign that was reincarnated barely a year ago and came on duty with presumption towards all humans as usurpers.
@@wuaduhsiapa bro started yapping without even doing her story quest 💀
@@Jfernandez02 wdym exactly??
They know she exists but doesn't mean they have met her lmao
*Genshin archon quest be like:*
Focalors: "should your identity be revealed, then all hope will be lost."
Furina: "how will I do this?"
Focalors: "You simply need to play the role of a god as humans imagine them to be"
Zajef: "Why did Furina listen to the people in the audience of her accession speech? Is she stupid?"
Like Focalors literally tells her to be the Archon the people want, of course she's gonna put the people's perception of herself over anything else when the fate of everyone is in her hands.
Zajef is the definition of overthinking
In my opinion it's hard to say that someone is overthinking a story because media literacy is all about being able to critically look at and analyze a piece of media, however I still think Zajef pulled the Beidou and Furina takes outta nowhere
@@omnipresent_lightbulb yeaaa, like i guess you can assume some things but unless they’re not 100% confirmed, you shouldn’t stress sm about them when it’s really not that deep (like with beidou, which I believe is an oversight on his behalf, cause a vision from what I remember wouldn’t work unless it’s in capable hands)
@@CukiCookiebut the whole point of the tournament is to find someone capable of activating it, the thing is anyone was allowed to enter even someone with malicious intent, which makes her a not very responsible person, this is probably an oversight from the writers because she definitely wasn’t characterized as a irresponsible person
@renjie8910 Celestia gives visions to people with "ambitions". that person could probably kill babies in their freetime, they're simply given to people who have the potential to ascend to Celestia and become Gods. Whoever would have won the vision needed to be the most powerful, and in Beidous eyes that was enough for them to wield elemental energy.
This tells us that she's very caring, as Kazuha wanted anybody at all to activate the vision and Beidou wanted to help him. Also Beidou is literally a fucking pirate who illegally distributes medicine are you idiotic
@@omnipresent_lightbulb Media literacy is a cope that twitter commies use to overanalyze and insert their politics into places where they arent meant to exist.
This is a game made by chinese people, someone looking at it with a western lense looking for western political concepts is at best gonna find false positives.
Bro probably likes flavorless ice cream.
Genuinely don’t believe these are your favorites. It’s like you are picking some of the least popular just to be hipster.
Dehya and candace
Why are you so afraid of people not being in the norm?
so we go from "what character i like" to "what character personality i like" to "what character story i like" and back to "what character personality i like" again then "what character i want them to be"
bro’s tierlist was as consistent as the inazuma achorn quest
i will never understand why zajef plays this game when he clearly doesn’t like anything about it
The take on Lynette was absolutely horrid, like excuse the girl who got tr@fficked for not being great at expressing her emotions.💀Also she absolutely LOVES her brothers, she willingly roped herself in whatever they were doing with Clervie, despite knowing she might die along with them if caught.
Its not really self inflicted because Furina herself had no say in the matter, only Focalors. Focalors and Furina are two entirely seperate entities.
people will be way less triggered when they realize he's clearly trying to be contrarian to stand out
He said in the video that it ruins it for him when they make scenes with characters just to make you simp for them. This is a totally understandable argument, he's not saying this to stand out. These horny baits are all over gacha games and they do get really annoying over time.
@@retrakor no one who actually played through the story would come to the conclusion he did about furina
she was explicitly told she must have everyone fooled and the whole nation was reliant on her and he thinks her going over the board at first and ending up maintains the facade was over the top lol
@@c.221 did you read my comment? What I said has no relation for furina
@@retrakor The parts about him not liking the fanservicey characters aren’t what my initial comment was talking about
not liking nilou/ayaka because they are bland is a popular opinion
It’s the other ones I was talking about
@@c.221 I see, point to you then
In defense of Furina, it is glossed over too much that the personality of Furina was essentially a newborn when she was brought to the Court of Fontaine. Not in terms of mental capacity but in terms of actual age and experience with dealing with people, especially when it comes to negativity. Her being bombastic and switching up on a dime makes sense in that context.
There’s also the fact that if she made even a small mistake, her entire nation would literally die, which was made pretty clear to miss
@@iker9095 And she cannot show how weak she actually is. The people doubted her because she acted like an human leader. And not like an archon. So what can she do to convince them as fast as possible that she is an archon? Not with her none existing elemental powers. Or her knowledge. She had to act like an archon.
If we look another Archon:
Venti: He doesn't want to be a leader. But the people still pray to him and think very highly of him. They won't assume he is bard with an alcoholic problem + stealing his own Harp and destroying it. If the people would see somone like him as their archon they would doubt him too. But unlike Furina he can use his power to give a feeling of safety. Furina cannot.
So the only thing she can do is act like a good (or what she thinks how a god acts). I think Zajef ignores this very important detail. Just because the Archons bahave normal doesn't mean their people think they would behave like this.
This could be done by pretty much any Archon.
@@joe_simon yeah, that’s also what I said in another comment. People seem to forget that archons aren’t seen as a drunk bard, a grandpa who likes to say oswantheus wine, a uwu anime anime waifu who likes desserts(I hate myself for saying that) or a cute cabbage baby. They are seen as all powerful gods who won a war against other gods and now rules the entire world as leaders of powerful nations
This is exactly what I was thinking when he was talking about her, like she looked like a young adult but had the mental age of a toddler at best and was never given the opportunity to mature and grow as her own person. A nervous and anxious toddler would absolutely switch their behavior at the first sign of resistance, maybe not as drastically as Furina did, but she was dealing with the people of Fontaine for crying out loud, the nation of drama and exaggerations, she wouldn’t have fit the nation she was presiding over if she was less dramatic. Just say that you didn’t like how she acted when she was pretending, that’s understandable. I think Zajef spends too much time comparing these characters to how real people act, when they’re just pixels on a screen. Sure they might be exaggerated and overly tropey, but what are you really expecting from an anime-style Gacha game lmao
Bro takes cooking lessons from the raiden shogun.
I notice he hates any character that is in any way kind of rude or mean
Bro
How the hell is lynnette an asshole
Every character on his list would be the type of person to have never flipped their behavior card back in elementary school
The take on Lynette was absolutely horrid, like excuse the girl who got tr@fficked for not being great at expressing her emotions.💀Also she absolutely LOVES her brothers, she willingly roped herself in whatever they were doing with Clervie, despite knowing she might die along with them if caught.
8:08 after almost a year, in retrospective, I kind of understand Zajef's take. It's not the fact that she was pressured, imo that is enough motivation, it's the fact that they didn't show it to be that convincing?
Because my current interpretation is Furina saw some people doubt her in her debut as an archon, took those as a sign she was doing bad (immaturity and insecurity? Jumping the gun a bit?) and changed her personality. Which was a dumb choice but it is part of her character. It is her flaw that it is self-inflicted. And we know she wasn't this all-knowing person from what Focalors said. None of this makes it "bad" writing. This is the approach they showed.
Now, would it absolve her of "guilt" in her own suffering if we were shown that the majority were losing faith bc of her not being dramatic? Yes. Is that how she is written? No.
So, like I read in comments over the years "just because the story is not written how you want it, doesn't mean it's bad"
Listening to his critique of Neuvilette characterization made me remember Shenhe. Writers put in her character all of these things that really make you believe that she is not sociable at all: deadpanness, complete lack of reading the room, aggressiveness and inappropriate directness.
Zajef has never had a single good take about anything ever. Being good at math is his only redeeming quality.
dude stick to math...
Furina was the first archon who needed to fill the boots of her predecessor. Ball took over the country in secret and Nahida wasn't even allowed to try. Weirdly, Folcalor didn't help Furina in any way. It could be because of the prophecy, but it's never clearly stated so Zajef's reasoning is still possible.
Zajef: give these characters flaws
Furina: *has flaws*
Zajef: what an annoying little shit
10/10. These takes are so impressively bad it looped around and I enjoyed the video.
same with wanderer😭😭😭 got me fucked up there are like 2 actually flawed characters on the whole list and those are wrio and arle
The moment he said "furina did it out of insecurity and it was self inflicted" i realised he either completely ignored the best ever archon quest in the entire game or just forgot about it ..or maybe he just want to sound different and doesn't care what he's saying to achieve it.🤦🤦🤦 the word "insecure" implies that the matter at hand is personal whereas furina had to do it she was given that responsibility by the archon if she'd let people doubt her as her first impression it could literally mean the end of fontainians.....its not being insecure its being responsible specially where the consequences are severe.
You dont have to always be different. Becouse some things are universal and "the main plot" u cant sound unique where the plot is straight forward. 😭
I like Zajef because while i dont agree with everything he says but because of the way he words his feelings I am able to see things from a different perspective and understand media better. Hes also very intelligent, i feel like people esp gacha players consume media and dont really critically engage with it in the way he does.
agreed, it's sad to see so many comments saying "he's just contrarian for the sake of it" when it's really not the case
100%. i disagree with a lot of his takes, but after he talks about why he feels that way, i can understand the train of thought. people saying "he's just being a contrarian for the sake of it" aren't actually listening to what he's saying
@@baizhu Most people would agree if he does the same, but if you ever seen him interacting with others on stream or podcast he has a tendency to argue even the smallest things and rarely try to understand others and just chalk up it up as others to wrong or misinformed than the topic itself being subjective and open for different views and interpretation.
yeap EXACTLY people get mad at his takes but I don't agree with him a lot of the times but the logic tracks so I can't even be mad since he has viewed things differently to begin with, it's a little stupid to flame someone u disagree with just bcs they see things differently
the thing about the '3 people had doubts about furina' take is that in a vacuum yeah zaj is right but in genshin 3, it basically means that every time we are told to "talk to everyone" we talk to 3 people/groups of people
I do think it would've been better if they zoomed out with all the lights turning on and a bunch of incoherent voices mumbling the same thing wouldve been better storytelling but genshin has set a standard of 3 =all so I don't think the way it was presented was unreasonable
my man Zajef should just stick to theorycrafting, because these are definitely the takes of all time lol. Contradictory is putting it lightly, some just sounds straight up nonsense lmao
I agree and disagree with the furina take. Yes it's one her turning things up by a 1000 with her speech but at the same time she was told that everyone would die if they know she's not a real archon. That and the fact that she is basically a child when it come to knowledge of the world, she never been through anything like this, she have no experience putting up with resistance from others so of course her first instinct is to steer away as far as she could from what was perceived as the wrong way and somehow that stick
But as time goes on she should've atleast learn some of the basic knowledge cuz her from the first day she was an archon to like the present (while she was still an archon) was basically the same. It's as if she's only been alive for a week
@@vector_619she barely interacts with most people outside of her workers and even then those are just formal interactions. She already made her public persona that people knew for generations and was probably too late to change it since a sudden change of personality will most likely create suspicion. She also knew if she made a small mistake, it may kill everyone in Fontaine
@@iker9095 she could interact with people outside of workspace but she's too scared that people will think she's a sham yet she acts very childish infront of neuvilette like almost all the time not caring about getting her cover blown. She could try acting more normal overtime yknow, she doesn't have to go from 1000 to 0 overnight, like when she have those meet up thingy with her people, she could try showing her people a bit more emotion, try to relate to them, make the people think she's a leader, an archon but just because she's a god doesn't mean she can't act more humane. There's a reason leaders try to relate to the people from time to time and not just keep the high and mighty status 24/7. People would love her more if she can make the people think she's one of them. And if she did went through this route the moment she got caught that she's actually just a normal human being people won't immediately feel betrayed. Once you set yourself up as this omnipotent can't do no wrong image in people even the smallest bit of mistake will make people question your authority.
@@vector_619 she puts an act on neuvillet too and that’s her entire persona she created, what you said makes zero sense. And she did bond with people in those meetings and even going to help them personally. The entire point of her act as an archon is that the image she portrays is what she thinks is the most convincing one and the one of a charismatic leader even tho it ended up not being like one, focalors literally tells her to become the god that people think would be and most of archons don’t act like humans for the general public (we know that is not true because we met them, but most people don’t); barbatos overthrew a god and defeated a dangerous dragon and then left the people rule mondstad; zhong li defeated many gods and suppressed many dangers while making an annual appearance in the form of a divine dragon to share his wisdom; the shogun is known as an all powerful warrior that defeated many big threats for her country; rukkadevata is known to save her nation with her own sacrifice(people think she sacrificed her og body, but it’s close enough) and is also an extremely intelligent goddess who made her nation prosper; none of her references are shown to the public as normal humans but capable leaders or strong warriors that are far superior to any mortal being. Also the fact that she was a new born human means that she didn’t have knowledge on social interactions or how to act properly and the feedback she received at the beginning was the one that stuck with her
@@vector_619 Her entire time off-work was consumed by research, she only interacted with people who were helping her on that - scientists, people who also don't have much in terms of social contact as shown by any that we interacted with
As far as I know, Arle can't jump out of the water like native (?) Fontaine people, so...
shes not from fontaine its comfirmed in her story quest
zajef said he doesn't care where she was born tho
Arle was only raised in Fontaine but not born there, so technically speaking she is not a native
The in-game classification is based on their vision. She is a Snezhnaya character in this context.
Thoma’s not from Inazuma, so it doesn’t really matter
I think Zajef's perspective on characters is pretty reflective of his profession and general mindset. As a theorycrafter, he's a pragmatist and looks at things objectively and logically, mathematically in a sense. If something attempts to play at emotions in exchange for being slightly unreasonable or incoherent, it doesn't work for him, which is a fine outlook, it just happens to be completely opposed to how Genshin likes to write its characters
No there is a simpler explanation, he is a twitter commie and cant turn off politics brain.
This comment makes absolutely no sense because I don't think intentionally misunderstanding a story like what he did with Beidou is logical or mathematical. It's just not paying attention.
The reason furina had to act up and be overdramatic is because her audience was not human. The people of fontaine were water spirits who looked at the drama and the romance and the ups and downs of human life and wanted that for themselves. From the beginning their notion of humanity was one born of drama. The people of fontaine wouldnt have accepted a normal archon because the people of fontaine arent normal. They hunger for drama and the thrill so much that even their courtroom is an opera house where they can feast their souls on the emotion provided by the trial. Furina landed in the unfortunate role of having to placate these people and the sad part isnt the effort she was putting or anything like that but instead that furina could not talk to anyone about the whole situation. The sad part of furinas story isnt the 500 years of masquerade but instead the 500 years of solitude. Of being the centre of attention but ultimately alone
Also holy shit 11:43 he says make neuvillette get angry or sad but in the quest its literally raining half the time and multiple times its noted that in fontaine it rains whenever the hydro dragon gets sad. Do theorycrafters like actually play the game?
@@afridge8608exactly??? AND he feels immense regret for letting navias father get killed. But he still has 'no flaws' apparently. It's unbelievable that he plays this game as his job honestly.
relieved to see that the comments agree with me. wtf are these takes man
this is why i listen to Zajef's TC takes but none others lmao
listen, you could hate every Inazuma character that exists but my boy Itto will never be outside the list of lovable characters
this man can stay in 1 part of the kitchen because if he goes anywhere else he will burn it
I'm fairly certain Arlecchino also states she wasn't raised in Fontaine either, but it is what she considers her home
The Hearth House department in which she grew up, which was shown both in the teaser and in the quest, is located in Fontaine. In the flashbacks that was talking about Crucabena methods, room designs are also Fontaine like🤷🏻♀️
She was not born in Fontaine but was raised in Fontaine
@vampiranya9939 sorry, I realise I misremembered. I just checked and she said "this is simply the land where I was raised", however I'd still argue that since she was trapped in the house at all times as a child, I wouldn't consider that to be the same. Since then, she's probably been between Snezhnaya and Fontaine a pretty equal amount, so to say she's Snezhnayan is valid in my opinion, though she does claim herself to be a fontainian she does also outright say its a lie so she obviously doesn't even see herself as a true fontainian
@@AdamB_29 well, she said that her being! native! Fontaine is a lie, but even in teapot she referred like "what Fontaine in his right mind would refuse..." something along the line.
in teyvat you can already get a vision randomly and if beidou gives someone a vision and it lights up then they sooner or later would have gained a vision on their own too, so not really a problem where it goes cause you can't control it anyways moreover someone else (celestia) has FULL control over it.
2:12 yeah, a gun thats is basically digitally locked and will inly be operable after youve registered the firearm and payed your taxes ( you're a worthy vision holder)
And at that point, its celestia's fault if the vision holder uses it for harm
Today I learnt: Zajef doesn't like literary analysis
Disagree with Beidou thing (a vision is not always a gun, look at Diona and Yoimiya, they mostly use it for daily life, and not to fight - so do many other characters. It's just the gameplay is battle-focus, but most characters don't even fight that much). I actually tend to like same characters as zajef (I like Navia and Yoimiya a lot though, Yae and Beidou too, as for Bennett - no, Jean instead). Also like Sigewinne, Lynette and Lyney.
A vision isn't always a gun, are used for daily life, and not do fight. You are just forgetting that the said vision is being rewarded by a battle tournament. 💀💀
@@thelordhu3200 and? bro acts like this wasnt a tournament between a pirate crew kek
Even if its a gun, who cares? Teyvat is a very dangerous place most people leaving the cities are armed in some way or else they die at the first monster attack.
This take is completely influenced by zajefs IRL political views and makes no sense for a medieval fantasy world.
@@thelordhu3200i don't think it's a death battle tournament but more of a fun recreational pirate thingy traditions but with just a vision as reward. And didn't they say that they are looking for someone 'worthy' to reactivate it, and they just tried if a tournament winner can be a worthy activator of it.
Plus, human tournaments and battle stuffs are not new on genshin. It sounds unethical to us but in teyvat society it's probably normal to risk life on things. Eremites do the same, fontaine law has duel to fight for your name. Even Inazuma has a duel before the throne that the archon actually take the losers life. And we're going to the nation of war where we'll even see more of those duel and tournament stuffs, even hosted by the god herself. Comparing to those, i could say Beidou's event just fine
Oh no, Zajef Lore takes 💀💀
Big L for Sumeru being the only one left out of the thumbnail despite having the best cast of characters
Fr... When he said alhaitham, cyno, scara and faruzan were unlikable i just kinda paused cuz wdym ☠️
me when Chiori makes the list :o
me when Chiori gets disqualified out of technicalitiy :(
dont let this big guy cook never again with facts about the lore of character
you gotta admit bro is based for that Venti take
some of yall have worse reading comprehension than zajef and it shows
Half of the video I was mad, but when he spoke about Venti, my faith restored a little.
Turns out the key to be a theorycrafter is not going outside
Neuvillettes biggest flaw or mistake i guess is when he put the audience in danger when the whale showed up and failed to protect his people. Had to rely on childe to lure it away from the audience while neuvillette attacks straight at the whale in the direction of the audience. He acts irrationally without thinking, as shown in his story quest too.
there's some interesting takes that i don't agree with but i love that zajef recognizes how welll written venti is, i love his characterisation the most too and the recognition of how zhongli and are opposites indeed kept me so interested in how different archons handle Their nations based on their beliefs etc.
I mean, i know Genshin isnt the best at storytelling, but it's not like we can't really get what the story's trying to tell, and specially in media like videogames, and considering the (possible) writers conditions in the company, i think it kinda takes some interpretative good-will. With that said, jef saying that Furina changed her way because of 3 people in the audience was so fucking funny, like, it's so obvious that it wasn't what the storytelling was trying to get across. But anyways, its not like hoyo is just a indie smol bean company, so they could definitely make more effort in the storytelling
Ain't no way bro dosen't censor the natlan chars before chat asks what about natlan designs
Vision are given to very niche people that are deemed worthy by the gods and possesses an upright ambitions (notice how there is no vision holder that are considered pure evil). Guns on the other hand are not by default considered bad but it's how you use it. I quite get the comparison but the difference is guns are accessible to basically anyone while visions aren't. And it's safe to say that people blessed with vision wouldn't use it for harm or anything.
I don't think beidou's intentions is purely illogical and unethical, 'cause first, a masterless vision wont regenerate power just easily unless it recognizes the worthy person first (Ningguang and Mona for example) and Vision is practically a very valuable tool especially on the world full of monsters, elemental stuffs, and a lot of going on. Being a basic human def has low survival rate on teyvat realistically. And almost anyone aspires to be blessed with vision.
is he really gonna complain about gun laws in an anime game when the character in question is a pirate, like bro 😂 also furina acted different from the other archons because she herself never was an archon to begin with, she’s human, she made human mistakes, and had to live her life terrified of those mistakes becoming problems. that’s why her personality morphed into something so dramatic. i honestly think furina has the best character development in the entire game
Bro is an absolute unit in team building and advice on character, but to understand the character lore he's on a another planet 😂
Zajef is the biggest Genshin hater lol
Except for his take on Venti (Venti is the goat frfr) I said "what?" to so many of these takes help
I can see the pattern here. He likes characters who are modest in life, as most of them are already content in life and some of them are striving for realistic goals.
Venti, Zhongli, Yae, Nilou, Neuvillette.... this is a mix of design and gameplay/meta value, not purely all the way to one direction or the other.
“if a character has a scene that makes me simp for them then i like them less” what exactly does that mean to zajef??? bc not everything is fanservice and zajef is already a very contrarian and negative person especially when it comes to genshin so i feel as if he could be grasping for straws to continue to shit on characters
Zajef's take on furina's story is soooo fucking bad lol, he always gaslights himself into misinterpreting the lore somehow.
"Neuvi doesn't have a flaw" okay so he didn't do neuvi's story quest or pay attention to anything related to him in the archon quest lol, this is what i mean when i write that he gaslights himself into believing his headcanons for the characters are real when they're not.
7:10 there's a lot of misunderstanding about the Fontaine archon quest because people just miss shiz, like this point here. There weren't 3, there were many, like 10 or smt - and we're supposed to infer by the proportion of the seats highlighted by the spotlight just how many in general.
There were 3 different voices, yes, but the spotlights show how many people shared the sentiment and there were proportionally a LOT.
But I also think a lot of other aspects of this story like Focalor's plan, and especially the themes of theatre, justice and water, that are integreted into the story, are not appreciated as much. Just how well these things are integrated into the story WHILE enhancing entertainment (not reducing it) is truly a massive achievement.
Irrespective of whether you loved Fontaine archon quest or not, imo it's a story telling masterpiece and it makes me a bit sad that I think it's generally underrated despite it being the most loved archon quest thus far. (And I say this having watched no less then 15 to 20 full playthroughs by different people).
I think a story can be very "well written" in terms of the characters and philosophy it portrays but it can still be a 0/10 if it's boring - and I am fascinated by how Fontaine is extremely entertaining while being well written.
"Make neuvillette feel things" BRO ITS A WHOLE THING THAT HE GETS SAD ALL THE TIME AND DOESNT SHOW IT, THE WHOLE HYDRO DRAGON DONT CRY SAYING IS BECAUSE HES SAD
this video proves to me that zajeff just does not like units that are silly and positive except for itto and bennett😭
That was most definitely a Furina take
I mean, that's the kind of opinion I would expect from a canadian
At first I was very intrigued to know Zajef's thoughts on characters and lore because I've never seen this side of him, but after a while I'm just like ummmm... that's fine I guess?
I might disagree on some of the characters he likes and dislikes, but on the whole these are some incredibly based takes. I'm so used to reading and hearing the same boring simp takes for these archons quests that are written terribly, that it's nice to see someone who can see through the BS.
I agree on the Furina take and I would also go on to say that her role in Focalors plan was entirely pointless and unnecessary. There is no compelling reason presented as to *why* Focalors needed to hide away for 500 years, just some vague allusion to "deceiving the heavenly principles". But what is there for them to notice? What is stopping Focalors from doing exactly what Furina did? Why is she unable to be the public facing archon? This plan of hers is not explained nearly enough, if it even is at all.
Agreed. It's not even Furina, it's the higher level circumstances surrounding her. Like, Focalors could totally be in Furina's place. There was no indication that she had to be inside the judgment machine for it to work and she would be near it all the time anyway. Why couldn't she be the archon? At the end of the story they would just judge her instead of Furina.
Genuinely asking, why does Zajef make this game his full-time job when he says 90% of the game isn't for him?
Not even trying to hate, I just think it's bizarre? As someone with a stable job, I can't stress how much of a bad decision that is. And he always seems grumpy and tired, or at least always a contrarian who can never talk about things he genuinely enjoys.
Have you seen how few people in canada find jobs right out of college rn? Every place is just hiring the indian immigrants for cheap.
Imagine not liking Faruzan after playing her hangout
Bro hates all the good characters 💀 these takes are Abysmal.
Though I actually agree with him on Furina specifically. Her suffering was her own doing. All she had to do was just do what every other archon does and just not care what others think of them.
This is just wrong. Furina was a human and doesn't know how a "god" should act. Focalors herself said that furina should instead act as a god that the public views them to be. She tried being humble and down to earth, but that didn't go well. The citizens immediately became skeptical about her during her ascension day.
@@lekoesic Oh no, two people said she was different from the last archon, oh no... nobody else was complaining. Also, Focalors never said that she should cater to the people. She only said "Make people believe you're the archon." Not her fault that Furina misinterpreted that. The people weren't even saying "she's not the archon." They were merely saying her personality is different.
@@JosepiThe13th There are many things you said that aren't correct and i'm not good at formatting things nicely so i'll just point them one by one:
1. Focalors told furina to act as the god that humans perceive them to be. Furina being a human and having the mind of one herself, would understand how they imagine gods are. Focalors' exact words from the quest were, "What you must do is not turn yourself into a real god, but act as a god humans imagine them to be." Zajef's argument of "furina should just act as a real archon" directly contradicts Focalors' instructions in the story. And then i want you to tell me, how should a human who has no recollection of her godhood past understand how a real god acts? if focalors ' divinity truly wanted furina to act like the ideal archon, she definitely would've told her somehow.
2. There were not simply two people who showed doubt. You can see as the lights gradually turn on, it represented the situation that there were many people in the seats that expressed their skepticism and flat out questioned if she was a puppet by the maison cardinale. With that out of the way, even with the number of NPCs in the audience showing doubt, just because there are only a couple of dozen doesn't necessarily mean only a few dozen people were skeptic. You do realize this takes place in a game, and people's devices have limited storage spaces. They can't just put actual accurate numbers of how many people would be inside the opera. Refer to the scene in liyue where the supposed entire citizen of the country would gather to greet rex lapis. Only around a dozen NPCs were shown. Does this mean there are that few people in Liyue? this argument is completely missing the whole point of the scene, that is to show that the people in the opera were skeptic of furina. The whole POINT of furina acting is to not let a single person doubt her and possibly uncover the truth. Which is why it is such an incredible feat, that she managed to fool the entire nation into thinking she's the actual archon, dispelling all doubts.
Absolutely diabolical takes.
I KIND of get what he was trying to say with furina, and while I do agree that it sort of felt rushed, Furina had no previous experience with acting as a god for people, or people in GENERAL, and she doesn’t have any powers to support her claim as Fontaine’s new archon. She quite literally couldn’t have done anything else but switch and do a full 180, because in her eyes if she even messed up a little bit and her people got even a small bit suspicious, the prophecy would be fulfilled. So she, with no other choice in her mind, acted as eccentric and crazy as she thought a god would act, and stuck with it.
Insane nuclear takes
This guy should stick to theorycrafting cause holy his lore/game takes are bad. But even in TC, his takes are questionable lmao. I don't know how so many people trust this guy.
For me the top 3 are:
Mondstadt: Venti, Razor, Klee
Liyue: Xingqiu, Chongyun, Zhongli (I like most of the liyue character not gonna lie)
Inazuma: Raiden, Yae Miko, Gorou
Sumeru: Wanderer, Cyno, Tighnari
Fontaine: Lyney, Freminet, Furina (I like a lot os characters here too)