Discussion Characters / HonkaiStarRail

Wouldn't Continuity Nod be more suited for Welt and VA since the events in Honkai Impact 3rd are confirmed to have taken place in the Honkai: Star Rail universe (just in a different location and in the past, Welt is also trying to find his way back home), while Mythology Gag is for explicit non-canon?

Regarding the second-level reorganisation, I'm not opposed to the idea but I think it would be best for editors to finish creating the various entries for characters before we start reorganisation, otherwise the additions of more sub-factions might feel more confusing.

Side note - Cyrille needs a folder, perhaps under Historical or Miscellaneous if there isn't enough characters to warrant a new section.

Edited by CatVillianess Freminet you are loved!!!

It's more Welt and Void Archives jumped to this universe from theirs

Late, but GI actually shares the same continuity with HI 3 and HSR, since the former features a scene where a character manages to peer through Teyvat through the Imaginary Tree, the same Tree HI 3 and HSR worlds are located in.

Just an eagle. (Feel free to PM me if you want to talk to me).

Some fan artists I follow also saw it as well.

It's not just a boulder, it's a Rock. :^)

Okay, now they rereleased her drip marketing now at the correct time (https://twitter.com/honkaistarrail/status/1749644157512258003)

It's not just a boulder, it's a Rock. :^)

At this writing, the section has about 36k bytes; I'm not sure if faction pages are subject to the 40k bytes minimum threshold that character-specific pages require?

It's not just a boulder, it's a Rock. :^)

Those edits to the description were largely done by Ner0014re N, who wanted a hard revamp of the character descriptions. Personally, I prefer a softer approach: both the upgrades and gacha availability paragraphs can be dispensed with, but at least incorporate as many Bonus Abilities (Bs) and Eidolon Resonances (Es) as possible into the five main abilities (or failing that, mentioned at the end), albeit limited to add-ons (hence direct boosts like E3 and E5 are excluded).

When I raised the suggestion, the latter objected and opted for emphasizing Bs at the end (on the grounds that they are free, unlike Es); I objected, citing that Es are retained out of respect to the Trailblazer (who gets them through story progression), as well as to characters handed for free (and turned to Es if players already have an earlier copy), that there are Bs and Es (besides E3 and E5) that are straightforward boosts (and thus to be excluded), and that they are to be couched in language that suggests being optional (because characters all start at Level 1 and without Bs); again, they objected , so I kinda said "screw it, just dispense of Bs altogether," and the rest is history.

You could take up your concern to the aforementioned troper on the Forum section (I know this should be addressed here, but posting there seems to elicit quicker responses).

Edited by zero5889 Slowly losing my mind, Bocchi-style.

Since Honkai: Star Rail and Genshin Impact shares the character progression system, I'd rather keep the descriptions Eidolons and Bonus Abilities as Genshin's character pages keep the description of the Talents' Bonus Abilities and Constellation.

The deletion of the paragraphs explaining Bonus Abilities and Eidolons are outright unwarranted at best.

Edit: After looking at this forum message, I'd say this is the best approach to handle Bonus Abilities and Eidolons while keeping it brief. A little in-character fluff does not hurt.

Edited by hunter10bt

The discussion on trimming character descriptions started a month ago. Several tropers have already weighed in their thoughts why trimming was necessary, though the discussion was mostly between tropers zero5889 and Ner0014re N.

As for hunter10bt saying "A little in-character fluff does not hurt"... I have to say that sometimes, fluff doesn't really make sense depending on the character... specifically if tropers were trying to link Eidolon/Trace gameplay and lore when they can be misinterpreted in another way, or are not exactly Gameplay and Story Integration at all.

For one particular example on why I agreed trimming fluff was needed... Someone added too much in-character fluff or Purple Prose to Welt's Trace and Eidolon when they didn't make sense. Frankly, Welt's old and lengthy character Trace/Eidolon paragraph could be attributed to tropers (likely newer miHoYo fans) mixing up Welt's Herrscher of Reason powers and the Star of Eden, which may contradict the lore (in-game, Welt himself has a dialogue in the Parlor Car saying these two are different matters entirely). Worse case, people were likely making up descriptions for Welt when they haven't played Honkai Impact 3rd to know what they're actually writing about him.

Edit: Almost forgot to mention, but there are tropers in the Genshin forum who are just fine with streamlining descriptions and removing fluff from the Genshin pages as well.

Edited by DanteVin With Great Power, Comes Great Motivation

Agreed on deleting the gacha banner availabiltiy paragraph.

I think that would be appropriate. Strip Imbibitor Lunae's folder down to a paragraph about his identity as a historical member of the Xianzhou and the tropes associated with that role. That he was the High Elder of the Vidiyahara and committed some grave betrayal that got him banished and stripped of his role and incarnation.

Remove the unmarked spoilers, respoiler Dan Heng's connections with him, and move everything related to him as a current character to Dan Heng's folder on the Astral Express page. Give it it's own page if things end up edging over the line.

Edited by WarlikeCetaceous

Honestly, I'm not sure here because, unlike Genshin, SR characters are not bound to weapon archetypes since each character has their own unique permanent weapon that they always use, and the Light Cones are not exactly weapons per se. They act more like stat amplifiers than anything, only using Genshin's weapon functionality as a baseline.

I am aware that the playable characters have their own weapons, and the Light Cones are mere stat boosters. Nevertheless, some Light Cones depict the playable characters and match their Paths, as well as bear passive abilities that amplify their strengths and/or compensate for their weaknesses.

To take some examples of "compatible" Light Cones for the first five readily available characters (sorry for sounding too long):

• "Only Silence Remains" (Dan Heng [The Hunt]): Increases Attack, as well as Critical Rate if there are no more than two foes in the field; Dan Heng's Skill is guaranteed to inflict Slow whenever it scores critical hits, while his Ultimate deals greater damage if his target is Slowed, meaning the Light Cone indirectly increases his chances of inflicting Slow and boosts his Ultimate.
• "Day One of My New Life" (March 7th [Preservation]): Increases wearer's Defense and party's Damage Resistance, hence playing into her defense-oriented gameplay by indirectly boosting her shields' resilience.
• "This Is Me!" (March 7th [Preservation]): Increases wearer's Defense, as well as damage output after using their Ultimate scaling off of Defense; this helps compensate for March 7th's relatively low damage output and incentivizes players to further build up her already high Defense.
• "Geniuses' Repose" (Herta [Erudition]): Increases Attack, as well as Critical Damage for three turns after defeating an enemy; this plays well into Herta's specialization in quickly disposing of enemy mobs.
• "Birth of the Self" (Herta [Erudition]): Increases damage of follow-up attacks, doubly so if the primary target has less than half their HP; as Herta's Talent gives her a multi-target follow-up attack whenever her allies bring an enemy's HP to below half, the Light Cone also plays into her specialization in mob cleanup.
• "Post-Op Conversation" (Natasha [Abundance]): Increases Energy Regeneration Rate, as well as Outgoing Healing upon using Ultimate; Natasha's kit makes her a pure healer, and the Light Cone allows her to use her Ultimate sooner.
• "Shared Feeling" (Natasha [Abundance]): Increases Outgoing Healing, as well as regenerates party's Energy after using Skill; again, this helps Natasha's healing and makes it easier for her to use her Ultimate, as well as contributes to her allies' Energy charging.
• "Today is Another Peaceful Day" (Qingque [Erudition]): Increases damage based on the wearer's Max Energy; as of v1.1, Qingque has one of the largest Energy pools among the playable characters with 140 points, hence this Light Cone serves her very well.

If you find the "Weapon Specialization" trope inadequate, feel free to propose alternative tropes that would cover such compatibilities; failing that, we can just use the aforementioned trope anyways with a disclaimer that it is being played with or is a variant (not unlike what is being done with the "Upgrade Artifact" trope being applied to the characters' third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, which increase the Trace levels of their Basic Attack, Skill, Ultimate, and Talent).

Edited by zero5889 Slowly losing my mind, Bocchi-style.

The closest trope I can find that applies to Light Cones being more effective on certain characters is Set Bonus. Otherwise, please don't use Weapon Specialization for Light Cones because it's straight-up misuse.

Fair enough, we can designate them under the "Set Bonus" trope. Also, we could indicate on that trope's entry in the main page that certain Light Cones seem designed to be nigh-exclusively used by certain characters based on the fact that they bear their likeness and match their Paths.

Edited by zero5889 Slowly losing my mind, Bocchi-style.

Sure. Quality-wise, the backgroundless renders are more clear with better resolution anyway, so I don't mind the current images being swapped for those.

I think separating the playable characters from NPCs makes perfect sense since while people do care about NPCs playable characters are often given more focus and cared about more. At the same time if previous pages in the Mihoyoverse have a consistent way of handling them like ~{AnoBakaDesu} mentioned on the thread I can understand the frustration with the page for Star Rail being handled differently. I like the compromise I saw on the thread but maybe do it by planet instead of factions? So like all the characters related to the Herta Space Station (And maybe the Astral Express by extension.) would be on a page for that with the playable characters being listed first.

Edited by Chariot

^ Fair enough. My intent with the soft split between playable characters and NPCs was to avoid the same issues that the Genshin character pages have, where it's difficult to sort out the playable characters along a long list of NPCs because they're so haphazardly placed based on factions, regional locations, etc., even when they have bolded names to denote their playable status. It's such a mess, so for SR, I decided to tackle that issue early while the game is still young before it became a long-term problem.

-"maybe do it by planet instead of factions?"

Uh... Isn't that the current layout for the SR character pages already? Each main page houses playable characters and NPCs specific to the planet/spaceship they're from. Unless you're referring to Characters.Honkai Star Rail Stellaron Hunters where it is an entirely faction-based page. I'm so confused with your question.

Edited by VintageEmma

People in the thread were suggesting changing it so that characters were listed by faction (Harmony, Preservation, etc.). I'm saying that listing them by planet is better than that.

Edited by Chariot

^ Oh, yeah. The one that Memers suggested. Sorry if I misinterpreted that, haha.

And yeah, basing characters on major locations is still a viable thing to do, because if we went with Memer's suggestion, the pages would be too small for their own good. The Abundance page in particular would be criminally short because, as of this writing, only Natasha and Bailu are the currently-available Abundance characters with Luocha on the way. If more characters release, however, the Path pages may be viable in the future. Just not right now.

I would recommend visiting Ask the Tropers for that. Even I'm so confused as to what's what.

I’ve gone through each of those three pages and come up with some conclusions:

Mythology Gag is, according to the description, meant to be applied to now-non-canon moments, information, or designs being referenced in the modern iteration. The page example is a 2017 character having their body transformed into their design from 1987. It’s stated to mostly apply to reboots or collective series. As H I3rd and Star Rail are two extant universes sharing the same multiverse and the same continuity, this trope doesn’t apply.

Company Cross References elements of one work showing up in another work made by that same company. However, these are outright stated to be REFERENCES, which I think that character porting Honkai does goes a bit beyond. Portraits of Mario showing up in Zelda’s castle is one thing, Mario actually showing up with all the dressings is another. In Star Rail, this would be the Wind Glider and Surtr’s remnants in the Station.

Expy fits a little better. An Expy is a character based on an already existing character that, although very similar in one or more ways to the source, is their own character. What’s important is that even if they’re outrageously similar, the inspiration and the creation aren’t exactly the same. This still doesn’t quite work with Honkai, as suspects like the Seeles and Himeko’s have very similar lives and traits, even have the same names, even though they reach different end results.

I think Alternate Self fits the best. Himeko the Navigator and Himeko Murata are the same person who have lived very different lives. They’re identical, but different; the same origin with different endings.

That's the thing, I initially thought that Mythology Gag covers all possible Honkai references that Star Rail makes. In fact, when the HSR pages on this wiki were still new and tropers were already listing references to the previous Honkai games that they could find, Mythology Gag is the trope that's being consistently used.

Then when the HSR pages got some Troper Critical Mass due to the game being released, other tropers brought in more tropes that could potentially cover these Honkai references. The fact that Himeko's example got moved around twice means that there's some confusion around what trope's the best option.

So far, with WarlikeCetaceous' suggestion on the character-specific references, we have one vote for Alternate Self?

Hopefully if this discussion proceeds, we could also move some Mythology Gag and Company Cross References examples on the main Video Game tab to their appropriate places. For example, March 7th's skill animation is in fact a reference or homage to Kiana Kaslana's pose in the app icon of HI3, but such info isn't moved to her character folder yet.

With Great Power, Comes Great Motivation

I agree that Alternate Self fits better than any of the three tropes mentioned, especially since the Honkai franchise has made it known that alternate universes with the same characters (but different backgrounds) exist. Since every HI3 character introduced in Star Rail so far are alternate universe versions of themselves (barring Welt), Alternate Self makes a lot of sense here.

So, Alternate Self for characters like Bronya, Seele, and Himeko who are near identical to their counterparts, and then Expy for characters who only reference people like Asta, Hook, and Bailu: Asta being an astrologer with bad spending habits like Mona, Hook being an excitable, blonde, pyromaniacal child like Klee, and Bailu being an incredibly small, unusually long-lived healer who is a default 5-Star like Qiqi. Similar, but different.

Company Cross References might be the wrong trope for non-character Hoyoverse references. Continuity Nod seems closer, given that everything is sharing the same immediate multiverse. CCR happens between two wildly different works by the same creators; Impact 3rd, Genshin and Star Rail are all fairly alike and in largely similar settings.

Aside from that, if the reference isn’t to Hoyoverse material, it’s a Shout-Out, and if it’s a Hoyoverse reference that doesn’t take place in the Star Rail continuity(which includes HI 3 at the very least) then it’s a Mythology Gag. I think elements from manga spin-offs qualify for this, things that aren’t directly acknowledged in the main games.

Edited by WarlikeCetaceous

^ Pretty much. Alternate Self for alternate universe versions of HI3 characters, Expy for characters who are based on Genshin and other Hoyo characters from different works that are not necessarily the same, and Continuity Nod for everything else that fits in Hoyo's multiverse. Drop Mythology Gag entirely since it's misuse.

Edited by VintageEmma

So it's been more than a week?

I just wished more Star Rail tropers (especially those who mainly edit the character pages) are aware of this of discussion we're having, since it seems like plenty of examples really needed to be moved.

I started moving some examples I could find, such as Hook, Serval, Clara, and Bailu being expies of Klee, Xinyan, Nahida, and Qiqi (respectively in that order) instead of Company Cross References... and cited this discussion page. And this is just for those who have similarities with 1 Genshin character so to speak.

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However, if the Star Rail character is like a combination of 2 characters from previous miHoYo games, Expy might not be the good option, because that trope's description requires that the Expy should only be based on 1 character. What's the better trope then?

For example, some tropers listed March 7th being similar to Amber from Genshin and Elysia from Honkai Impact 3rd, but on 2 different tropes (Company Cross References and Expy respectively). You can also notice this with Dan Heng (tropers say he's Xiao + Kazuha) and Pela (tropers say he's Klee + Keqing)

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I'm just acting on the benefit of the doubt that these examples can still be salvaged with no worries if they are moved to their appropriate tropes... Not to mention consistency in troping similar stuff.

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I also moved March 7th's visual reference to Kiana in the HI3 icon as an Internal Homage example in her folder because it's a more specific subtrope of Mythology Gag.

With Great Power, Comes Great Motivation

Honestly, given the amount of nuances involved making things way more complicated and the fact that neither existing trope mentioned fits either definition of the characters, I would honestly vote in favor of removing all Expy, Company Cross References, and Mythology Gag entries altogether since every one of them so far is misuse to a major degree, and there is no trope that exists to my knowledge that covers this specific case of same-company characters being referenced in wildly different ways.

At the very least, use Alternate Self for characters who are confirmed to be alternate universe versions of characters from other Honkai games (Himeko, Bronya, Seele, Natasha, Sushang, and Silver Wolf).

Yes, this has gotten more complicated than I thought, haha. The idea was that we determine the best possible tropes so that we minimize MG and CCR examples being constantly moved around... But this has now suddenly turned into dealing with Expy because the examples were being "finalized" there so to speak. I even got both the Star Rail Forums and Expy Cleanup Thread talking about it on the same day, I guess.

Honestly, I can just really say that some editor(s) like(s) using the Company Cross References trope a lot, even if it's constantly challenged and moved by other different editors to different tropes such as Expy and Mythology Gag... At least there should've been a troper who can justify why CCR should've been the best trope for character-specific comparisons, but there's no one in favor of it so far, not even in the actual edits. Now that I think about it, Company Cross References became a root cause of the problem which I noticed and wanted to point out.

Worse case, editors can have edit wars out of moving things back to their previous tropes without providing edit reasons... but if I'm probably exhausted by noticing it at some point, I won't probably have the motivation to attempt to fix stuff regarding these specific tropes anymore.

Honestly, the Star Rail pages on this wiki are currently a mess when it comes to handling some "reference to another character from the same company" tropes such as these, especially the Genshin comparisons. It really seems like editors want to compare every miHoYo stuff to Genshin nowadays.

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It's actually fine and understandable if some Expy examples get deleted if they're questionable or deemed "too superficial" by other tropers.

I even got a PM from a fellow troper out of it as I moved the Hook, Serval, Clara, and Bailu examples to Expy... that the expy clean-up or move effort that we're having should've been brought to the Expy Cleanup Thread first.

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I haven't touched or moved any of the most obvious alternate "look-alike" Honkai characters (Himeko, Bronya, Seele, Natasha, Sushang, Otto/Luocha and Bronie/Silver Wolf) so far. Kafka might as well be in that list because there's also a Kafka in the previous two Honkai games.

Edited by DanteVin With Great Power, Comes Great Motivation

Ok, so I have a few questions to ask to hopefully create a starting point for a possible solution because I'm not familiar with the greater scope of Hoyo's lore beyond word of mouth. Just how extensively canon is Honkai's multiversal Imaginary Tree? And where does Genshin fit into the canon of the greater multiverse? (Considering Teyvat is also part of the Imaginary Tree.)

The closest comparison I can make to Honkai's Imaginary Tree is with the manga Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-, which may be an odd thing to mention here, but hear me out. The manga has its own canon multiverse where alternate universe versions of various Clamp characters from most of their other works are commonplace, and many universes the heroes travel to will have at least one AU version of a CLAMP character, whether be an Expy, Company Cross Reference, or a simple Continuity Nod. The main protagonists themselves are expies of Syaoran and Sakura from Cardcaptor Sakura, but they have different backgrounds and personalities from their original incarnations (on top of being older). Is the Honkai franchise also working on this same principle?

Edited by VintageEmma

The Imaginary Tree and Sea of Quanta multiverse system established in H I3rd is ''very'’ canon. Direct references to it appear in the primary title and Star Rail, and allusions exist in the predecessor game HG 2/GGZ and Genshin. The end of GGZ’s internal universe was ultimately represented by petals falling from a sakura tree, with the closing words “see you in the next world”, and the importance of trees is repeated heavily in Genshin with the Sacred Sakura and Irminsul. For bonus points, there is a moment in Raiden Shogun’s second story quest wherein the Traveler is almost outright stated to have free led through some subset of the Sea of Quanta.

There’s nothing concretely linking GGZ to the latter three titles, but those three do have concrete links. Even if you ignore the Genshin crossover event in Honkai as non-canon, an image of Dvalin the Anemo Dragon is shown in the main story. Impact 3rd and Star Rail are very confirmed with just the presence of Welt. So, references to GGZ would properly fall under the umbrella of Mythology Gag, as it does not exist in the same continuity as the primary three and has been “rebooted” in the form of Impact 3rd.

Tears of Themis, the only other title Hoyo has out right now, does not have any concrete links to the Imaginary/Quanta multiverse system. There is a reference to it in Star Rail, the dialogue for the House of Cards Curio in the Station being a replication of To T character dialogue, but there’s no hard confirmation.

And, a reminder of the trope criteria:

• Mythology Gag: Non-canon or rebooted content making an appearance in current canon.
• Continuity Nod: Content from earlier installments or works in the same The 'Verse making an appearance.
• Company Cross References: Content from one work appears or is referenced in another work, owned by the same company/network/studio.
• Expy: A character that is heavily modeled or takes primary traits from another character from a notable or related work.
• Alternate Self: A copy of one character from another dimension or timeline that differs in small but key ways.

We honestly might want to look at how these tropes are handled for Marvel and DC. This is a little bit of the same problem, just on a smaller scale.

Edited by WarlikeCetaceous

Alright, knowing this now, the solution is a lot more clear.

• Alternate Self for characters who are confirmed to be alternate universe versions of characters from HI3, Genshin, or any other Hoyo works connected to the multiverse canon. These include Himeko, Bronya, Seele, Natasha, Cocolia, Sushang, and Silver Wolf. Luocha may be added to that list if he really is an AU version of Otto Apocalypse.
• Expy for characters who are based on previous Hoyo works characters that aren't necessarily the same. Examples include Asta being based on Mona and Bailu being based on Qiqi.
• Continuity Nod for everything else that fits in the multiverse canon, such as the Traveler's glider and the shattered remains of Himeko's sword appearing as Curios in HSS.
• Finally, Company Cross References and Mythology Gag for references from Hoyo works with no concrete links to the multiverse canon, such as GGZ and Tears of Themis.

Hopefully I covered all my basis.

You mean rename? That’s actually a thought I had myself. Jarilo-VI being the official, in-game name for the location on the World Map is a good argument for using that rather than Belobog for the character page. I say yes, rename it.

Oops, I failed to specifically state that I meant to create a new namespace with which all the characters from the Belobog page will be moved, before cutting the latter page. But first, I must complete the descriptions for the playable characters (in particular their combat abilities).

Slowly losing my mind, Bocchi-style.

No problem. Just remember that hard splits require discussion and consensus first before proceeding with the moves.