* EXTRA NOTES & CORRECTIONS * (cuz I can't reply to every single comment addressing the same things over and over)


16:35
Yes, it has been corrected to be a mistranslation. However, the fact that we were not shown the process still stands.


18:55
Yes, Traveler did die. Remember the #1 rule of the Ode of Resurrection? Victory. So the question of "Ode of Resurrection somehow taking effect before victory" implies that Traveler did die, and was confused as to how they could be resurrected mid battle.

Also, "Xblanque" said, and I quote, "The lives of the Descenders are more valuable than you can imagine. You have destroyed this world's hope with your own hands."

Traveler = Descender = this world's hope. Mavuika was the one who invited them to fight Gosoythoth. Mavuika had destroyed this world's hope = the Descender was no more = Traveler had died. That’s my interpretation of the scene. If you disagree, that's okay.


29:13
In case this was not clear, it wasn't the Ley Lines problem or that Capitano being the solution to it that I was referring to here. It was the fact that Mavuika's solution was not as permanent as they made it out to be.

I think had they just mentioned about the potential return of the Abyss before the final battle, it would've been better. We could've gone into the fight with a sense of dread like, even after defeating the master of the Abyss the fight was still not over.

But since Mavuika needed to stay alive because she got the playable character plot armor, how could the story justify her escaping death? By telling us that the Abyss might return one day. That way fixing the Ley Lines became top priority. So now Mavuika's death could be not as simple as a normal human death, but a form of giving up her life force to LotN, thus strengthening the Ley Lines. So now... they could make Mavuika escape death, because LotN had made a deal with Capitano.

Genshin should stop writing war arcs, they can't do it. they tried with Inazuma and failed, they tried with Natlan and failed,it's enough.

My words for almost all of Natlan: "This had such great potential."

Also Iansan.
The characters from the Travail are usually our top supporters in their respective area. What's her bigger role in the main quest other than being one of the six heroes?
Why do I feel like whoever was responsible for making Dehya's kit is now behind Natlan's story.

And what's the point of waiting for the 6 heroes to awaken when they all just then sit on the sideline when Mavuika had to go in by herself?

I swear Natlan was rewritten.  

Iansan was the signature character and was literally useless in the story beyond being a stand in for an entire tribe we never interact with.

Vanessa being a plothole, and before someone say the manga isnt canon remember shes very much still the Falcon who ascended to Celestia.  Her entire tribe left Natlan and were the "children of Murata" easily said to be a previous pyro archon but never mentioned. Even the red hair being the signature feature of her tribe, but Mavuika being a redhead from the Canopy.

The npc characters designs are so lifeless i cant help but to believe the entire nation was redone last minute and they didnt have enough time to properly flesh it out.

What do i mean by this. The designs lack cultural significance in a way that is honestly jarring compared to the other nations. They aren't perfect, but you can at least see what the inspiration is.

Natlans' designs come off as if they chose random cultures and took the names and minor traits, and slapped them on characters with completely made-up costumes. They had a general idea and decided not to commit to it when it was time to implement them into the game.

I want so badly to see the concept designs for the characters because it will answer so many questions related to the designs direction of Natlan.

Chekhov’s gun mention is spot on. Fontaine was FULL of those guns. I mean, Callas’ trial was a foreshadowing of Focalors’ trial. A human ready to sacrifice their life for the sake of their beloved ones. And Neuvillette, not understanding sometimes there’s something humans value more than their own life. Twice. Twice he did this mistake, twice he condemned innocent before learning this lesson

17:22 natlanese are so perfect and awesome, xilonen just makes things like its nothing--outlander ancient name, flying futuristic motorbike, flying giant gun--all by herself! sumeru scholars and the fontaine reasearch institute fear her!!

My friend said Natlan seemed to be written by an entirely different team.

It also doesn't feel like Capitano's last-minute sacrifice has any effect on Mavuika.
Like, she has set up a plan to fix Natlan's problem, then left her family and sacrificed herself to the Flame, wandered a netherworld desert for 500 years, got reborn, recaptured the position of Archon, then started to nudge the pieces of the plan in place so that it can go off before the last shreds of Night Kingdom fall to abyssal corruption. She then makes a no doubt heavy decision to sacrifice herself to LotNK to buy Natlan more time so that it can rebuild itself.
Then in comes a man, takes her position as a sacrifice, and like... she just goes "Okay, sure"?
I mean yeah, it's a logical and most efficient solution that benefits everyone. But either it's like she always knew it would play exactly like this - which is why she never showed any shred of doubt earlier in the AQ, and tbh it would be interesting to see she always banked on Capitano to sacrifice himself - or that she's so emotionally dead after all of those years it doesn't phase her - in which case, a reverse Furina where instead of mental breakdowns and depression we have basically a death of self would have also been an interesting venue to explore.
But she never shows any emotion. She doesn't get mad that all of her suffering has been for nothing, because someone else has always planned to snatch the role of the sacrifice from her. She doesn't crack from relief that Natlan is fixed AND she doesn't have to die a second time and say farewell to her friends and loved ones. It's like it's not her first playthrough and she's only there to collect a few stray achievements.

I'm obsessed with reading all the lore of Genshin and you touched on the one thing that really irked me about Capitano - the lack of his lore. That too was dumped in exposition. Mavuika "everyone in Natlan knows about Thrain", just casually name dropping. Ok, cool, where are the books? Where is this mythology hiding? No artifact sets. No nothing. They couldn't have named dropped him at least in Perinheri? Or had Dain mention his name? There's not even an artifact set. They laid the groundwork for Scaramouche, Signora and Tartaglia (Tartaglia in Fontaine, not in Liyue. There's a weapon foreshadowing his fight with the whale. There's also mentions of "Ajax" in the Tower of Gestalt) for years before their storylines. Arlecchino had a hidden story quest in Inazuma, plus extra House of the Hearth mentions in the Chasm. Everything about the Captain (and Mavuika) was off screen or in marketing trailers.

And the odd choices they've been doing on their live streams and marketing recently has been honestly annoying right now. I was so annoyed that they announced Mavuika's story quest for after the Archon Quest before we got the chance to play the Archon Quest. Why put a character in mortal danger and then suck all the tension out of the scene because it's obvious they going to survive, they have a story quest coming up? Ugh. And then there's the painfully obvious spoilers of Mydei's drip marketing over in Star Rail. Their choices have been pretty frustrating. We don't need exposition in the marketing.

I had never heard show dont tell be described as trusting your audience’s intelligence enough to get the story. I think that’s a great way to put it

I feel like the captain was an utter disappointment with how absent he was. in fontaine and sumeru you could feel their presence but in natlan there was literally nothing. no threat what so ever and his intentions were mostly clear from the very first scene he appeared and he was just chilling and waiting to be an ally afterwards. No cool backstory could have saved that.

They need to add more critical characters like Wanderer to spice up the story. Natlan is so full of yes-men/yes-women.

They keep saying "No one fights alone" but Mavuika intended to fight the Abyss dragon alone and deal with Ronova and the Leylines alone. Contradictive and of no consequence.

You know the archon quest isn’t good, if you aren’t considered a criminal by the government at some point

I think that they fell into the pitfall of trying to many things at once, they brought
. Leylines
. Abyss
. Abyss Order
. Celestia
. War Arch
. Fatui
. 5 Tribes (all fighting for relevancy, sixth found dead in a ditch)
. Phlogiston and Fighting Spirit
. Dragons
. Ancient Tech
. 6 different five stars of equal unimportance fighting for screen time

the writing for Natlan made the characters feel so disjointed to me it was depressing, especially given the whole "unity" theme, there's usually AT LEAST one character i get really attached to per nation, bc of how they interact with the others and their personal lore, didn't happen this time, felt more like I was witnessing glorified NPC's, an Archon & (rarely) a Harbinger
literally only got Kinich so i could be Spiderman and not rely on the janky mobs to climb

Another strange thing is how Citroën knows that the traveler is a descender and just casually namedrops that term infront of Xylophone and the Lord of the Night. Up until now, that information has been treated as top secret, only the Fatui and René knew about descenders, but they both had a lot of resources at their disposal, Citroën is just a tribal Shaman.

Minor thing, but it still bothers me, that not even one character thought sending Kachina (a child) to fight the Abyss was a bad idea.  Also we went from manipulating timeline and reality in Sumeru, fighting against time and fatum in Fontaine to Avengers friendship is magic in Natlan... how?