Genshin Impact

One of the weapons from the Starglitter shop is pretty decent on her, I think

Still, the difference of performance between using and not using her BiS weapon is rather severe due to her bond of life gimmick.

That's why I called her more on the Awesome, but Impractical side in comparison to Hu Tao or maybe other "premium" units like Cyno.

And speaking of her, I finally got to her fight.

On one hand, this isn't the Curbstomp Battle that people were complaining about so saying that Arlecchino bodied the Traveler are just not engaging with the story.

With that said though, it's still a disappointing showing for the Traveler since you'd think they would use the elements to make Arlecchino stand down given the stakes in this fight and the fact that the Fontaine trio took a beating bad enough to leave them bedridden for two days.

On her mental attack, it's essentially a Call-Back to Raiden's Plane of Euthymia with the difference that Arlecchino can trap anyone inside it with her crimsom web to deal the final blow unopposed, it's really an instant kill technique and the animation drives the point home that Arlecchino could have shattered the Traveler's mind right there and then if she had wanted to.

Anyway, I share Mami's sentiment that making Arlecchino a "safe" character made her less interesting even if her story with Clervie is compelling on its own. I guess I'm just a bit frustrated that the writers can't commit on making the Fatui truly evil in general and back out at the last moment.

Still, it was a nice showing for the Fontaine trio and the fact that the Traveler does speak a bit near the end is welcome on my part. If there's one thing I do hope though is that this defeat is not left as an isolated event but instead becomes the starting point for some character development.

From what I read elsewhere, apparently there was a significant backlash within the Chinese social media sphere when Scaramouche/Wanderer was Promoted to Playable (though I'm not sure whether it's his "femboy" looks, the idea that he will be playable after all the unsavory stuff he did, or both), so I'm guessing miHoYo is playing it safe with their latest playable Harbinger..

scaramouche antis are a whole different breed of weird, best to just ignore them

Welp, I don't want to leave Fontaine's world quests hanging as long as I did the last few Sumeru quests, so off to adventure I go. First thing's first, Furina's Character Quest.

I, too, am confused with the whole Scaramouche/Wanderer brouhaha. From what I've seen of him, he's fairly fun in both combat and exploration.

Besides, it isn't like Genshin Impact didn't have its fair share of morally ambiguous playable characters before him (e.g., Tartaglia, Rosaria, Raiden Shogun, Yae Miko, Dori) or afterwards (e.g., Alhaitham, Arlecchino).

It's more about his personality and writing than his gameplay. Think of it like Bakugou discourse

Also a good deal of culture warring, because he's a cute boy who got a lot of focus and playability whereas a sexy woman didn't.

I never knew about that, but cultural differences in fan reactions are a fascinating thing so I looked it up and found an interesting Reddit post by a Chinese fan explaining in detail where the backlash against the character comes from.

According to the poster, it mostly comes down to the optics of Nahida going out of her way to help Scaramouche, while not visibly doing the same to the people who were oppressed by his and others’ actions like the desert people. Basically, they don’t think the character deserved a redemption or to become playable in comparison to other characters.

I don’t 100% agree with that take, but it’s interesting and I do kind of see where they’re coming from. Basically, that the Chinese audiences had far more sympathy for the oppressed Eremites than they did for Scaramouche, and disliked what they perceived as the plot giving The Wanderer special treatment.

Tbh, I’ve seen American fans turn on characters for less.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 3rd 2024 at 7:48:30 AM

I suspect that at least 50% of the outrage is men getting upset at the character a lot of women like.

I agree that the Eremites got (and continue to be) screwed over though.

Edited by Stage7-4 on May 3rd 2024 at 8:56:59 AM

I admit I'm not a huge fan of how Scaramouche was handled by the narrative or in gameplay. I wish Hoyoverse didn't feel the need to make every playable character good apart from the very rare exception like Childe. I like playing villains and when Dottore is inevitably not playable or a "good" segment of his is playable it's going to be sad.

Case in point, Dehya.

For what is worth, at least the explanation in Scaramouche’s quest added a lot to the lore of the game between explaining how people can be retconned by manipulating Irminsul as well as showing that the timeline is much more resilient than that and will make sure events happen whether or not the original actors of that are there or not.

Then again, I also had some Legacy of Kain nostalgia so what do I know.

Edited by raziel365 on May 3rd 2024 at 9:12:17 AM

I like the lore, I wish it wasn't done to Scaramouche. If that makes sense. It feels like a waste of perfectly good plotlines and potential character development to Ret-Gone him.

Imagine if we got Ei needing to grapple with the indirect harm she caused to both Inazuma and Sumeru because of her Parental Neglect. Or a proper confrontation between Scaramouche and Dottore that wouldn't amount to a "who are you again?". Instead all those potential threads to make a Story Quest with have been preemptively cut off and Scara's been shunted off into the Akademiya.

Edited by PhiSat on May 3rd 2024 at 10:20:18 AM

Given their other properties seem fine with playable villains I don't know why Hoyoverse declared that you must be light gray or pure-er to be a playable Genshin character, although the wild ride they take us on to twist and mold and scrub clean their more dubious characters is entertaining in it's own way. It's like watching someone insist that parkour is the only way to get from point A to B, and you're just baffled by the display.

Adding to the entertainment is that Hoyoverse seems to have their own standard for what they consider morally okay, where the most heinous crime a character can commit is kicking Venti while war crimes might as well be written in invisible ink.

Seems their current strategy is just to shove all the Fatui's worst traits onto Dottore who they already gave an easy out if he becomes playable someday (it's a clone!). Although from 5 nations worth of these shenanigans, I'd still expect them to overcomplicate this somehow.

Scara is still growing so I think those plotlines will return. They're just not as urgent as they would be if it hadn't happened. I'm at least relieved that they kept his personality as is, even if he's just more tsundere than aggro. His brief "amnesiac pure boy" phase was honestly weirding me out lol.

Also forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical about the reasons behind the controversy, not because I don't think Mihoyo doesn't skirt the line of making racist choices with their dark skinned characters but I'm remembering when one of Lyney's trailers was downvote brigaded (though that was the Korean fanbase)

Korea's brand of internet dudebro are their own brand of absolutely fucking mental

c.f. the small dick gesture

@ Phi Sat

I believe the reason why the writers chose to shunt off those plotlines to the indefinite future is because the writers want to clean up Ei’s act before she has to deal with the other consequences of her actions and inactions.

As Ei is right now, there really isn’t a good outcome for facing Scara now from a writing perspective: either it’s revealed that she was deliberately neglectful, which is the type of evil trait that is not cool; or, it’s revealed she was cluelessly neglectful, which only makes her (even more) incompetent in comparison to the other archons.

The problem is this has completely nuked the plotline, not put it off for a later time. Ei can't remember Scaramouche. Dottore as far as we know can't remember Scaramouche (though I wouldn't be surprised if he was somehow immune to Irminsul through mad science since his power tier is in the same realm as the gods). Any encounter with them and Scaramouche would be pointless now since it would be one-sided. Arlecchino not even having a Scaramouche voiceline even if you haven't done the Interlude quest yet suggests they have no interest in changing Scaramouche having retgonned himself anytime soon.

I don't see them doing it because of character development reasons either. Ei hasn't appeared in almost a whole year. The team doesn't seem to be in any rush to have her address her abandonment of Scaramouche outside of one retgonned voice line.

Unless somehow the story undoes the retcon Scaramouche imposed upon himself. Apparently there are suggestions that Arlecchino, a native Khaenri'ahn of royal lineage (and/or an outsider to Teyvat), may somehow remember his time in the Fatui, if the events of her animated backstory was framed in the present day and given his appearance in the scene of her appointment to her post by Pierro (alongside Signora, one of the few Harbingers she had a soft spot for, and Capitano, likely as a nod to his prominent role come Natlan); by extension, there's a slim chance the Jester will also vaguely remember his existence, and maybe also Dottore (given that the three highest-ranking Harbingers are stated to have godlike powers). Finally, let's not forget Hexenzirkel, in particular Nicole's warnings that history cannot be altered so easily, implying that at some point the events of the altered timeline may somehow point back to his involvement in its history.

The problem with retconning the retcon is you errode the illusion that anything in the story has a sense of permanence. Why would audiences get invested when it can so easily be undone? It's why time travel and resurrection are considered very spicy tropes not to be invoked on a whim.

So while Hoyoverse could take it back, I really wouldn't recommend it.

I mean, I don't think three characters remembering him is "retconning the retcon". The main consequences of his actions would still remain even if that was true, most characters and the broader world would still have no idea who he is. Which includes the people most important to his origins such as Ei or Yae Miko.

A Harbingers remembering Scaramouch doesn't mean that his story doesn't matter and it certainly doesn't mean that fans would have good reason to assume anything of the sort.

Arlecchino potentially being the one to remember Scaramouche is interesting. Because on the one hand, she knows he's a threat to the Harbingers. On the other hand, she really hates Dottore.

Arlecchino's character quest made it clear that while she's willing to bend the Fatui's rules slightly for people she's fond of, she still absolutely won't break them. And her version of bending the rules is giving deserters a magic potion that removes your memories in an excruciatingly painful way, instead of killing you per Fatui policy. Which says to me that if she remembered who Scaramouche is, then she or someone else in the Fatui would be actively trying to assassinate him as someone with an incredible amount of intel about the Fatui.

While she could know he exists and be keeping it a secret given that he was never apart of the house of the hearth and likely not her responsibility, but I'd see that as going against her character as a professional.

Edited by Stage7-4 on May 4th 2024 at 1:42:04 AM

I dunno. So far Arlecchino strikes to me as someone whose loyalty lay more with the House of the Hearth than the Tsaritsa (hence Tartaglia's distrust of her), and in addition to Dottore, has clearly expressed her distate for Pulcinella and Pantalone's implicit We Have Reserves mentality (especially given that their latest work, Project Stuzha, has a high risk of casualties and is expected to involve the House).

Also, another consistent element with the Harbingers is their Teeth-Clenched Teamwork, as seen as early as Tartaglia and Signora. I wouldn't be shocked if at some point such tensions could boil over into physical violence.

I'm guessing the Harbingers are going to be torn apart based on their allegiance to the Traveler. The "good" aligned Harbingers (like Tartaglia and Capitano and maybe Arlecchino) will side with the Traveler while the "evil" aligned ones (Dottore, Pantalone probably, Sandrone maybe) will remain with the Tsaritsa or strike off on their own.

Edited by PhiSat on May 4th 2024 at 12:28:42 PM