Akin to the video I published regarding the "Nature of the Abyss," this video was originally another small section of the Lore Movie, currently in production (as of 17/5/2026), about the Descenders. As you can tell, the topics discussed here didn't make the final cut of the movie, and so I decided to turn them into their own video since they are still quite interesting.

yes i DID click because i saw tartaglia on the thumbnail.

We wait months for an organized theory vid and the first thing we get is mandragora lore.

Tbh im here for it

For one second I thougth this video WAS the lore movie you're preparing. I was ready to watch 2+ hours of mandragora lore.

i think the funniest bit about mandragoras is how they can carry kuuvahki that can apparently make people sick, and then there's illuga just casually eating them

To back up your theory, in Finnish epic poetry Kalevala a hero named Lemminkäinen is also known as Ahti SAARELAINEN, and oh boy the similarities between Ajax/Tartaglia and Lemminkäinen/Saarelainen... Just the Wikipedia article about Lemminkäinen should be convincing enough, although the English version is unfortunately a bit all over the place.

Lemminkäinen/Saarelainen was a charming young man with red hair and quite the temper, known to be a bit of a... in the lack of a better word, battle-sexual and a playboy (sounds familiar?). Tiny lore bit: Lemminkäinen/Saarelainen lived mostly off fish, funny enough Tartaglia told that he used to go ice fishing with his siblings (iirc). The "fish diet" granted Lemminkäinen/Saarelainen some shamanic spell casting skills, sure nothing compared to, I dunno, giant fish(whale) related abyssal superpowers... right?

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There's a LOT of lore about Lemminkäinen/Saarelainen and his shenanigans, but when talking to a Finnish person who knows anything about Kalevala, 3 things that people might think of are:

1. Lemminkäinen, trip to Pohjola, attempting to court one of the daughters of Louhi (Mistress of Pohjola). The Daughters of Pohjola were described as divine, beautiful pale maidens, weaving golden- and silver threads of knowledge/fate/life and sitting on top of kirjokansi/rainbow/arch high up in the air (not quite like "up in the heavens" and angelic beings but somewhat similar nonetheless. Finnish "kirjokansi" translates loosely to celestial dome, also the lid of legendary Sampo Mill is called "kirjokansi"). Louhi set up a trial for Lemminkäinen to prove his worth, one of the tasks was to shoot down the black swan of River Tuoni (similar to River Styx). However killing a swan was considered a grave sin; Louhi had fooled Lemminkäinen. ...also too bad the divine daughter already had her favourite bachelor, Ilmarinen. Later Ilmarinen passed the trial set by Louhi (with some inside intel and guidance provided by the lovestruck daughter) and hurray, we have another classic "Grand Wedding&Tragic Marriage" story.

2. The death and revival of Lemminkäinen. Punishment for killing the swan was death, Lemminkäinen was executed. His body was chopped into pieces and scattered into River Tuoni. Later the mother of Lemminkäinen fished up his remains, put it all back together and was able to resurrect her son. (painting "Lemminkäisen äiti" by Akseli Gallen-Kallela)

3. Stealing the magical Sampo Mill. Lemminkäinen joined a "raid" to Pohjola with two heroes Väinämöinen and Ilmarinen. Their goal was to steal Sampo Mill from Louhi (Mistress of Pohjola), a device that could produce flour, salt and gold out of thin air. Louhi wasn't too happy about this; Ilmarinen was her son-in-law however the marriage had ended in one dead daughter and one daughter-transformed-into-seagull all thanks to Ilmarinen, and Lemminkäinen already had a bad reputation in Pohjola (like crashing a wedding, seducing some servant girls, allegedly killing The Master of Pohjola, raiding Pohjola once before... to name a few). Louhi commanded Iku-Turso, a huge sea monster, to chase after Lemminkäinen &TheBoys, Väinämöinen sends a delete-threat to this h*ntai monster, turns out Iku-Turso is a massive wimp -> Iku-Turso makes a pinky-promise "never appear in front of humans ever again" and dives away. Louhi says f*ck it, takes a form of an eagle-monstrosity, puts up a fight, Lemminkäinen &TheBoys fail their mission, Sampo Mill was destroyed and sank beneath the waves (painting "Sammon puolustus" by Akseli Gallen-Kallela). Lore of Sampo Mill in Kalevala and Genshin lore about Reed Miller is another rabbit hole...

TLDR: I think Hoyo likes Finnish mythology and I think they did fantastic job throwing bits and pieces of Kalevala in their lore-soup<3

Ohh now makes more sense why Skirk yeet Childe as we throw like that the Mandragoras.

It wouldn't be a My Name For Now video without Re:Zero glazing

Me 5 mins into the video: #doubt
Me at the end of the video: okay I can see it

12:06 the 4 rings and delusion on Childe's coil here kind of remind me of the the way the rings are alligned above the tree in domains

there is a reason why this author is my favourite lore person and this video sums it up perfectly

Given that line about the old myth of an innocent man's death forming the roots of the mandrake, i'd say it's a pretty good theory.  The mandragora also have that same visual triangle scaffold style of the whole island of pahoja and the amvartsmir area which is the zone where koitar was left after her memories were removed by the HP.

Bro became a data miner to prove his theories, respect

You know, I'm kinda mad I didn't catch the connection between the mandragora and Saareleinin because of course...they purify the abyss just like the Traveler can. 🤦‍♂️

I really love all your lore videos! Thank you so much for the work and all the research. It's really nice to see loretubers explore more of Ajax/Childe parallels and all his potential lore in the upcoming future of Snezhnaya, when everyone seems to just ignore him and simply underrate his importance 😮‍💨

Speaking of remnants and all that it's really fascinating to think about all Childe's appearances or involvements have a meaning behind and are somewhat very carefully chosen!! I still remember the first event on Labyrinth of the Warriors (2.2) the whole quest about Shiki Taishou's memories being tied to his replica's, and we needed to find his ''parts'' to recover his memory and learn more about the Onmyoudou, Harunosuke and his past. And later on he appeared on Fontaine where we get hit by all the information Skirk handles about the 3rd Descender.

He is one of the characters I really look forward to in Snezhnaya. Really curious how they will develop him if all the theories are confirmed, I just wish Hoyo don't let us down.

Thanks for the video! 💙

It’s been bugging me that the mandragoras don’t have bestiary info like every other monster/animal in the world, like what are they hiding from us? 🧐

Its always a good day when my name for now uploads

the region that Pyramida and Dreadshade Mire are in is called "Voidsea Outlook"
Feels like a very heavy handed clue by the devs 😅

Took me a minute to understand that what Saarelainen was asked to do is almost exactly what Vinster wanted the abyss sibling to do. Now I feel dumb.

Ok we are sure that saarelainen is ajax but i'm more curious about who is the ajax and I can only say he is the second life of seutervoinen, as we know seutervoinen dissapperaed after leaving koitar in the amsvartnir and we also know she also lost her memories, so it's very possible that she found a new vessel body an became the ajax of the far north with the lost memories of her identity as a voyager from the sea of stars, and as we know koitar went back to hyperborea, and ajax fell into hyperborea, The same place where they first met the place where the frozen silver tree located , where the jack frost king in linnea's bow protecting the golden bough
and we also know monomakh visited the hyperborea, and it changed his point of view he forgave the humans I think monomakh saw koitar or found koitar in disguise of a little girl and became the daughter of pakkaisukko a. k. a anastasya feodorovna