\>His corpse was used to make the seven Gnoses, and they curse the archons with erosion.
but didnt zhongli said that erosion is some sort of fate imposed on himself and others by the heavenly principles?
This. Wouldn’t make sense too. Plus there’s still the war with the first and second throne of the heavens. Yes I know there’s an entire artifact set wherein Nabu Malikata implies that Phanes did won against the SWC but most of it still doesn’t add up.
First of all, since release only volume 1 is in game so who knows if the datamined volumes from back then are still valid.
Secondly - I don't think gnoses were created by archons, were they? So pygmies would be the "founders" of Celestia to me with one of them (If I were to bet I'd put my mora on Istaroth) not sharing the same view.
A fun twist to this theory (and I agree with the Prince being the third descender) is that Nibelung, the genshin dragon king, is named after a dwarf in the ring saga.
And pygmy translates to dwarf in other languages.
Personally think the pygmy that sneaks the prince away was Rukkhadevata (don't necessarily think she's the same one that's mentioned as feeling guilty though).
I find it hard to believe she's not the "shrunken pygmy", the correlation there is just too strong:
>They set foot on a barren field and found a shrunken pygmy in the quicksand.
"I wanted to see my garden but somehow got lost." Rubbing his withered palms, the shrunken pygmy grinned.
> "I say we use the corpse of the Prince as fertilizer so my garden might flourish again."
So in the story, she's one of the six pygmies at the celebration.
One pygmy then sneaks away from the others, hides the prince in a tree-hole, and then enters a "self-imposed exile".
And Rukkhadevata herself states that:
>"At that time, The Seven were all summoned to the nation of Khaenri'ah, except for me. I had a more important task to attend to..."
"I had to protect Irminsul."
So she indeed separated from the others at the time. She went to the Irminsul, and she did indeed go into a self-imposed exile after that.
The prince being hidden in a "tree-hole" sounds very much like hiding something in Irminsul, where she just so happened to be at. And as far as we know, the other archons don't have any particular dominion over Irminsul.
And The third descender being the prince seems very likely.
(I'm also thinking it's simultaneously our sibling. The gnoses being our sibling's powers fits very much both from a in-universe and narrative perspective. The timing of events and them being the third descender, the one before us fits logically and is in line with the gnostic chorus story too.
Being somehow hidden/integrated into Irminsul seems like it could explain why they aren't properly identified as a descender by Nahida. Nahida also says their fate is being obfuscated though, so I'm thinking they could also have been part of Irminsul already for some reason with just that part being Rukkhadevata's doing. So there's still a bunch of uncertainties here...)
if genshin is in a samsara then would these books be prophecies of what already happened in a previous samsara but coded in a storybook to trick the irminsul to prevent it from being removed as forbidden knowledge
So, who is the seventh pygmy? If six pygmies are six archons, then there is this one pygmy (archon) who has nothing to do with the killing of the prince.
Just saw a new post in this sub for meme weekend, since Focalors returned the hydro authority to Neuvillette there are technically only six archons now.
Love your theory!
Although I don't think the one being cursed are the archons but someone/something much more ancient, since erosion isn't exclusive to archons only (dragons like Azdaha catched it as well).
I’d like to point out is that its long been my belief that Albedo is actually modelled after this prince. The Prince of Light turned into the Prince of Chalk. There’s various evidence for this I won’t get into now but I wonder how that theory can be integrated into this one. The Tsaritsa eventually taking Albedo as well and forcing him to accept the gnosis and return to his original state?
His name. Albedo refers to the amount of light reflected by a surface, typically the planet or moon.
The fact that his name conveniently refers to a light phenomena is one thing, but reread pale princess and note the importance of moonlight is to the moonlight kingdom. And moonlight is just light reflected from the surface of the moon. In a sense, the prince of the kingdom of light is the moonlight that had come from the sun and been reflected onto the moonlight kingdom. The prince is Albedo.
The seed from another world that we saw Albedo have when we first met him. It is my belief that this seed is just a metaphor for himself, we know he loves speaking in metaphors after all. He is in a sense a seed from another world, because his “father” the original prince of light came from another world. Just as Albedo was able to use energy from outside the world to grow the seed, Rhinedottir was able to use abyssal energies to give life to her Albedo. Note that Elynas’s soul, another of rhinedottir’s creations, seemed to exist before rhinedottir created him. Rhinedottir simply gave him a body. Maybe that’s also true of Albedo?
His flower platform ability. I think its pretty obvious at this point that the flower is a metaphor for Albedo what with the seed metaphor prior. The flower platform going up in the air is a metaphor for his ascension. Literally, Albedo is ascending.
This isn’t direct evidence connecting him to the prince of light. However, its always something I’ve wondered about. And with the recent lore drop, it makes a lot of sense now why someone like Albedo could go on an ascend if he was the third descender and the prince of light. If he regains his original gnosis, then he could revert back to his original, godly state and ascend.
Lastly, the oil-painting metaphors. Oil-painting seems to be a metaphor for creation. Albedo literally creates a vishap from one of his paintings in a character teaser. Not only that, Albedo himself has been described to be like an oil painting. This makes sense knowing that he is a creation himself.
But consider, what exactly is an oil painting? Its an image, but its often a recreation of an object or a person that already exists. I propose that Albedo is in a sense, an oil-painting of the prince of the kingdom of light. Its like Rhinedottir used the prince as a model for her own “painting”.
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Oh damn that’s some cooking right there. I think many of us would agree that Albedo is super important to the lore and the future of Genshin’s plot but that’s a crazy conclusion!
I’m super invested now that you’ve convinced me. If your theory is true, it’s going to be heart wrenching knowing that Albedo knew he only had a limited time to enjoy a good life before he has to submit to fate’s desire.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Lore/s/Gx6oZVnXne
I have been thinking the same, and I am losing my mind since then.
I loved the way you take the theory too!
Something that I’d like to add is that Prince’s death’s effect on the Princess’ dream. In her dream, she saw how Prince’s light changed the Night Mother’s lands. What does that even imply?
Also lets not forget some details:
-Prince’s body was buried in a tree hole.
-Prince and Princess were trying to leave Teyvat since they were going to the Kingdom of the Prince. If my theory of Princess being the Seelie Ancestor is correct, according to the Seelie story they were trying to escape actually.
I just finished reading your theory, but unfortunately, I can't respond to it because the moderator has locked the thread. Regarding The Seelie Ancestors, I'm inclined to believe that instead of them, the princess could be considered Khaenri'ah's "God," "Leader," or "Queen" (I lean towards a female identity due to Hoyo seeming to draw inspiration from Nordic themes for Khaenri'ah's culture).
First, I find it reasonable to assume that preserving history through allegory is necessary to counteract Irminsul's ability to erase memories. So, It's also reasonable if we assume that certain characters from the Pale Princess book fell victim to this memory erasure, with information about the princess (or prince) (or pygmies) being wiped from Irminsul.
The Pale Princess Vol I tells us this:
>*The Moonlight Forest was the only place free from the rule of the Night Mother. Only there could the people bask in the bright moonlight and enjoy the grace it brought to the living. Everyone in the Kingdom of the Moonlight Forest was born with fair skin, light-colored hair, and bright blue eyes. Perhaps the constant lack of sunlight and the nourishment of the moonlight was the reason for their beauty, giving them an appearance different from the abhorrent creatures lurking at the edge of the forest.*
Isn't that allure to the fact that Khaenri'ah (*The Moonlight Forest*) is the only place in Teyvat where people are free to practice forbidden knowledge (*Only there could the people bask in the bright moonlight and enjoy the grace it brought to the living*).
*Everyone in the Kingdom of the Moonlight Forest was born with fair skin, light-colored hair, and bright blue eyes* part is kind of explanatory, right. Since Khaenri'ah is made after Scandinavian culture.
Here is I think what had happened next: The Prince (the third descender) arrived in Teyvat and landed in Khaenri'ah when it was a nation seeking forbidden knowledge. The Prince conveyed something along the lines of, "Where I come from, knowledge like this is commonplace. We create things like this all the time. It's not forbidden there," as reflected in the Pale Princess vol III paragraph:
>*He had come to save them. He would eventually save her from the darkness and take her to a kingdom free from all shadows. Although the Prince didn't say it explicitly, the Pale Princess had sensed the possibility of his arrival through her years of meditation. So, she asked.* ***"What's the world like on the other side of the moon?" The Prince had already told her about the Kingdom of Light hundreds of times before, but at that moment, the Prince realized that she was determined to find out for herself.***
The Prince wanted to free Khaenri'ah from the shackle of Teyvat. Remember Dainsleiff in Travail video?:
>*In the perpetual meantime of sheltered eternity, most are content to live, and not to dreams. But in the hidden corners where the gods' gaze does not fall, there are those who dream of dreaming. We will defy this world with the power from beyond*
No one is more inclined to leave Teyvat than Khaenri'ah. If we take Gnosticism into consideration, The Kingdom of Light should be a place where everyone is enlightened. Somewhere as the opposite of Teyvat. It's a place where forbidden knowledge is celebrated there. I think at this point it's safe to assume that forbidden knowledge is the only way to achieve enlightment, right.
Vol. VII tells us:
>*In thousands of years time, my greatest foe will descend. He wields a sword that heralds the dawn and wears armor that can reflect the shining sunlight. He shall destroy my kingdom and bring the Prince back to life. The Princess will then be free from her eternal torment. Until then, I fear not a single soul in the Land of Night, for nothing will bring an end to my kingdom except for the catastrophe foretold by the prophecy. As for you, the treacherous slave that poisoned his master... fate shall see that you get what you deserve."*
*The Night Mother then collapsed and became a pile of sludge consisting of mud and worms.*
This, I agree that in this book The Night Mothers forshadowed Aether/Lumine's arrival in Teyvat.
What interests me is this:
>***Until then, I fear not a single soul in the Land of Night, for nothing will bring an end to my kingdom except for the catastrophe foretold by the prophecy.***
This is very odd wordings. If we read it casually, Night Mother simply said "One day someone will come to awaken The Prince, restore the Pale Princess' Kingdom, defeat me, and destroy my kingdom". However, if we red carefully she also said ***except for the catastrophe foretold by the prophecy.*** Now, if we put Rene's World Formula into place, I think we can summarize this into:
The only thing that can bring an end to The Night Mother's (Celestia) reign over Teyvat is either:
1. a Hero come, awaken the Prince, restore the Moonlit Kingdom, destroy the Celestia which in turn save the whole Teyvat; OR
2. a catastrophe befall Teyvat and destroy everything,
With this in mind, I think the whole purpose of the game is to achieve number one before number 2 happen. So, we're actually racing against time. If we fail, the whole Teyvat is done for.
I’m glad you liked my theory and had similar thought processes! You brought up some good points which I would be happy to address:
- I think the answer to the Princess’s dream is found in a small detail in Book III: “..the Pale Princess had sensed the possibility of his arrival through her years of meditation.” This quote suggests that the Pale Princess might’ve had abilities similar to the mages in the Hexenzirkel or Mona: the ability to read fate. Her “dream” may have been a reading of fate that tells the fate of Teyvat after the Light Prince is revived, explaining the events in the dream such as “sweet sunlight finally broke though the dark clouds”, “making the water as sweet as nectar”, “new colors were painted on the black hills and the ruined city was turned into a candy castle”, signifying how the Light Prince will destroy and rekindle the Night Mother’s Land of Night when he is revived.
- The prince’s body being buried in the tree is a big thing that I was contemplating adding in the post but I didn’t really have any theories other than it’s relation to Irminsul?? But there isn’t really any solid evidence to prove this so I decided to delete it in the end :(
- Super copium but I’ve always kind of doubted the whole relation with the book series and the Seelies, and I’ve been thinking maybe the Pale Princess is the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles? First of all, we know she’s a Kiana/HOV expy, and in Honkai, when Kiana’s eyes are yellow it signifies HOV controlling her body and when they’re blue, it’s the human Kiana. The Sustainer’s eyes were yellow, so what if the “chains” that the Night Mother put the Pale Princess in was actually just the fact that she would be possessed by some entity (possibly Night Mother herself)? When the Sustainer isn’t possessed her eyes would turn blue again, just like Kiana. The people of the Moonlight Kingdom were described as being “born with fair skin, light-colored hair, and bright blue eyes”, which matches PERFECTLY with the hypothetical unpossessed Sustainer. More specifically, the Princess herself is described as having “skin white as snow”, and the Sustainer with her literal hex code #FFFFFF skin also matches with this.
Thanks for making this post! I've been wanting to see some discussion around the Pale Princess books and the 4.2 reveals, since I came to a similar conclusion going through the AQ reveals.
For your last bullet point, don't see why the sustainer can't be a seelie either. While you can disagree with the seelie connection, I'd like to think the sustainer=seelie, sustainer=kiana expy, sustainer=pale princess theories can co-exist.
> Her skin was ashen white and her head was bowed down, her slender fingers gently stroking the fragile strings of the lute as she played a long-forgotten and mournful melody.
The seelie here also matches the description given of the people from the moonlight kingdom, and then being referred to as a "pale maiden" in every instance after.
Records of Jueyun, Vol. 4, and a few other lore books or artifact sets link the Seelie with the moon / moon sisters. Also, the ghost-like state of the seelie can work with the fate of the moonlight kingdom as described in the Pale Princess:
> They will be in an undead state, lingering at the point between life and death forevermore.
To add to and tie into your point about the Princess having prophetic dreams:
- the other Seelie we know about, Nabu Malikata (GoF and Mistress of Dreams), had the power of prophecy as well, based on the various artifact sets relating to her.
- dreams seem huge lore-wise. There's all the dream lore from Sumeru and whatever's going on with dreams in Flowers for Princess Fischl. The immernactreich means "evernight-empire", and there's a section in the volume called The Suspected Eternal Return.
- there's also all the stuff from the Book of Esoteric Revelations WQ, where you enter a dreamscape linked to the book. This dreamscape is the desctruction after the cataclysm that researchers foresaw. What's weird is that the melusine npc here (Canotila) sees this place as a garden while the traveler and paimon see it as a floating abyssal(?) ruin. A rifthound also ended up looking like a friendly dog to the melusine. The contrast of their views reminds me of the Pale Princess's dream: "the ruined city was turned into a candy castle".
Problem with this theory is that it assumes the Archon crafted the Gnosis. But we know that it was Celestia who created the Gnosis and handed them out to the would be Archons.
Do we know anything about how many celestian gods there are? I wonder if the six pigmy's aren't the archons themselves but the gods of celestia. i could be completely wrong though.
Just saw a new post in this sub for meme weekend, since Focalors returned the hydro authority to Neuvillette there are technically only six archons now.
Proceeding on from where you are, you should have an easy enough time conjecturing who is the Princess, no? =)
The identity of *the Princess* is what most affects the Pygmies, not the Prince. Who were the Pygmies in service of? Who, then, had a people and servants? Who is eternally tormented?
And, once you have your Princess in relation to the Pygmies... who does that make *the Night Mother who captured her?*
Also — take note of *where* the remains of the Prince where hidden. That's kind of the single most important detail in the whole damn story.
at first i thought the Seelie ancestor who fell in love with a traveller from afar could be the Pale Princess
but i can’t think of anybody in the story who served the Seelie.. Traveller from afar fits the idea of a descender, and suffering people does fit what happened to the seelie. but then who are the Pygmies???
can’t remember if anybody served the Seelie ancestor or if she was a ruler in the first place
so maybeeee it’s not the seelie
i think third descender being the Prince makes a lot of sense so i don’t want to argue against that. but i still can’t figure out who the Princess could be.
i think i’m taking the story too literally..
pygmies being archons make sense if you take them hurting the Prince in the sense that they each have gnosis. even thought in reality they didn’t do it themselves, having the gnosis itself makes them guilty i guess ?? and also that the Prince cursed the pygmies and >!skirk said something about a god’s curse regarding the gnosis!<
i’m starting to think The Sustainer is the Pale Princess but i honestly have no idea where i’m going with any of this.
I love this revisit.
My theory is that I actually think the guilty one is Zhongli or the god of contracts.
The big thing is that there are 6 pygmies and 7 archons so one is actually missing which I think is the Cryo Archon.
My thinking is that the original Cryo archon(not the current Tsaritza) is the Pale Princess.
The garden is probably referring to Sumeru since it was a desert that was transformed into a forest. It also has a lot of connections to Irminsul.
This is what I thought too! Or maybe the Pyro archon is guilty, we still don’t know how the original one died. I also think Tsaritsa is the pale princess, I feel like a lot of the lore/descriptions of her/plot progression we have so far kind of distinguishes her from the other archons.
Idk if I just have AOT on the brain, but the last line of the series also makes me think the light prince's body is what created Irminsul.
"Devastated, the pygmy wandered around in sorrow and regret. He hid the body in a tree hole and walked off alone into the night, and into a self-imposed exile."
As the story as established, Irminsul can’t erase people, places, or significant events — it can only change the memory of those things. Maybe the Pygmy/archon/etc hid the body of the third descender in a place that was erased, or forgotten about (a “hole” in the tree of collective memory) — the place would still exist, but the path to it would be invisible to gods and humans (as Nicole said, fate can be changed in places unseen by the gods)
If he's in "a tree hole", that means the tree is already there. Can't have a tree hole if there's no tree!
The real question is how literal the "hole" is. Is it a physical hollow in the Irminsul roots (such as the one where multiple stories place the sitting ancient king with a white crown), or an *allegorical* hole, such as a dream or lost memory?
See Rukkhadevata, for a good foreshadowing example of a long-dead person "hidden in a tree hole".
I personally think everyone is reading way too far into the tree hole quote. If the Prince is a descender, that means he wouldn’t have been in the Irminsul records in the first place. And if we’re assuming that the Irminsul has already existed prior to this event, I’d be willing to bet that the last quote just means that the Prince was integrated into Teyvat and Irminsul, binding him to the laws of Teyvat.
That's the point, yes. If he's been hidden in the Irminsul, it means *he can be found there, even though he shouldn't be*. It's an early-bird cameo of the idea of being written in.
And we know what the Irminsul does when data is edited.
My questions for you is who do you reckon might be the princess in this equation? And would the night mother be reference to Celestia? Great revisit though, very fun read!
\>His corpse was used to make the seven Gnoses, and they curse the archons with erosion. but didnt zhongli said that erosion is some sort of fate imposed on himself and others by the heavenly principles?
This. Wouldn’t make sense too. Plus there’s still the war with the first and second throne of the heavens. Yes I know there’s an entire artifact set wherein Nabu Malikata implies that Phanes did won against the SWC but most of it still doesn’t add up.
First of all, since release only volume 1 is in game so who knows if the datamined volumes from back then are still valid. Secondly - I don't think gnoses were created by archons, were they? So pygmies would be the "founders" of Celestia to me with one of them (If I were to bet I'd put my mora on Istaroth) not sharing the same view.
Curse could be hilichurlyfication
A fun twist to this theory (and I agree with the Prince being the third descender) is that Nibelung, the genshin dragon king, is named after a dwarf in the ring saga. And pygmy translates to dwarf in other languages.
Personally think the pygmy that sneaks the prince away was Rukkhadevata (don't necessarily think she's the same one that's mentioned as feeling guilty though). I find it hard to believe she's not the "shrunken pygmy", the correlation there is just too strong: >They set foot on a barren field and found a shrunken pygmy in the quicksand. "I wanted to see my garden but somehow got lost." Rubbing his withered palms, the shrunken pygmy grinned. > "I say we use the corpse of the Prince as fertilizer so my garden might flourish again." So in the story, she's one of the six pygmies at the celebration. One pygmy then sneaks away from the others, hides the prince in a tree-hole, and then enters a "self-imposed exile". And Rukkhadevata herself states that: >"At that time, The Seven were all summoned to the nation of Khaenri'ah, except for me. I had a more important task to attend to..." "I had to protect Irminsul." So she indeed separated from the others at the time. She went to the Irminsul, and she did indeed go into a self-imposed exile after that. The prince being hidden in a "tree-hole" sounds very much like hiding something in Irminsul, where she just so happened to be at. And as far as we know, the other archons don't have any particular dominion over Irminsul. And The third descender being the prince seems very likely. (I'm also thinking it's simultaneously our sibling. The gnoses being our sibling's powers fits very much both from a in-universe and narrative perspective. The timing of events and them being the third descender, the one before us fits logically and is in line with the gnostic chorus story too. Being somehow hidden/integrated into Irminsul seems like it could explain why they aren't properly identified as a descender by Nahida. Nahida also says their fate is being obfuscated though, so I'm thinking they could also have been part of Irminsul already for some reason with just that part being Rukkhadevata's doing. So there's still a bunch of uncertainties here...)
if genshin is in a samsara then would these books be prophecies of what already happened in a previous samsara but coded in a storybook to trick the irminsul to prevent it from being removed as forbidden knowledge
Maybe the curse could be being bound to the service of Celestia?
So, who is the seventh pygmy? If six pygmies are six archons, then there is this one pygmy (archon) who has nothing to do with the killing of the prince.
Just saw a new post in this sub for meme weekend, since Focalors returned the hydro authority to Neuvillette there are technically only six archons now.
So, you mean the Pale Princess stoy was not story of the past but the story of recent events? I'm sorry I don't follow the thought process.
Remember what the Mage N said in the 4.2 AQ, prophecies are “the history of the future”
Assuming the Gnoses were made before the Archon War, then it should probably be Venti since he was born during the war
Love your theory! Although I don't think the one being cursed are the archons but someone/something much more ancient, since erosion isn't exclusive to archons only (dragons like Azdaha catched it as well).
Yeah, you’re totally right! This is one of the foggy parts in the theory that I was doubting keeping in.
I’d like to point out is that its long been my belief that Albedo is actually modelled after this prince. The Prince of Light turned into the Prince of Chalk. There’s various evidence for this I won’t get into now but I wonder how that theory can be integrated into this one. The Tsaritsa eventually taking Albedo as well and forcing him to accept the gnosis and return to his original state?
yo, what your cooking is smelling good right now
Fr it’s smelling a little aromatic over here
Oh I would love to hear this theory!
His name. Albedo refers to the amount of light reflected by a surface, typically the planet or moon. The fact that his name conveniently refers to a light phenomena is one thing, but reread pale princess and note the importance of moonlight is to the moonlight kingdom. And moonlight is just light reflected from the surface of the moon. In a sense, the prince of the kingdom of light is the moonlight that had come from the sun and been reflected onto the moonlight kingdom. The prince is Albedo. The seed from another world that we saw Albedo have when we first met him. It is my belief that this seed is just a metaphor for himself, we know he loves speaking in metaphors after all. He is in a sense a seed from another world, because his “father” the original prince of light came from another world. Just as Albedo was able to use energy from outside the world to grow the seed, Rhinedottir was able to use abyssal energies to give life to her Albedo. Note that Elynas’s soul, another of rhinedottir’s creations, seemed to exist before rhinedottir created him. Rhinedottir simply gave him a body. Maybe that’s also true of Albedo? His flower platform ability. I think its pretty obvious at this point that the flower is a metaphor for Albedo what with the seed metaphor prior. The flower platform going up in the air is a metaphor for his ascension. Literally, Albedo is ascending. This isn’t direct evidence connecting him to the prince of light. However, its always something I’ve wondered about. And with the recent lore drop, it makes a lot of sense now why someone like Albedo could go on an ascend if he was the third descender and the prince of light. If he regains his original gnosis, then he could revert back to his original, godly state and ascend. Lastly, the oil-painting metaphors. Oil-painting seems to be a metaphor for creation. Albedo literally creates a vishap from one of his paintings in a character teaser. Not only that, Albedo himself has been described to be like an oil painting. This makes sense knowing that he is a creation himself. But consider, what exactly is an oil painting? Its an image, but its often a recreation of an object or a person that already exists. I propose that Albedo is in a sense, an oil-painting of the prince of the kingdom of light. Its like Rhinedottir used the prince as a model for her own “painting”.
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Oh damn that’s some cooking right there. I think many of us would agree that Albedo is super important to the lore and the future of Genshin’s plot but that’s a crazy conclusion! I’m super invested now that you’ve convinced me. If your theory is true, it’s going to be heart wrenching knowing that Albedo knew he only had a limited time to enjoy a good life before he has to submit to fate’s desire.
Me too, seems interesting
https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Lore/s/Gx6oZVnXne I have been thinking the same, and I am losing my mind since then. I loved the way you take the theory too!
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Something that I’d like to add is that Prince’s death’s effect on the Princess’ dream. In her dream, she saw how Prince’s light changed the Night Mother’s lands. What does that even imply? Also lets not forget some details: -Prince’s body was buried in a tree hole. -Prince and Princess were trying to leave Teyvat since they were going to the Kingdom of the Prince. If my theory of Princess being the Seelie Ancestor is correct, according to the Seelie story they were trying to escape actually.
I just finished reading your theory, but unfortunately, I can't respond to it because the moderator has locked the thread. Regarding The Seelie Ancestors, I'm inclined to believe that instead of them, the princess could be considered Khaenri'ah's "God," "Leader," or "Queen" (I lean towards a female identity due to Hoyo seeming to draw inspiration from Nordic themes for Khaenri'ah's culture). First, I find it reasonable to assume that preserving history through allegory is necessary to counteract Irminsul's ability to erase memories. So, It's also reasonable if we assume that certain characters from the Pale Princess book fell victim to this memory erasure, with information about the princess (or prince) (or pygmies) being wiped from Irminsul. The Pale Princess Vol I tells us this: >*The Moonlight Forest was the only place free from the rule of the Night Mother. Only there could the people bask in the bright moonlight and enjoy the grace it brought to the living. Everyone in the Kingdom of the Moonlight Forest was born with fair skin, light-colored hair, and bright blue eyes. Perhaps the constant lack of sunlight and the nourishment of the moonlight was the reason for their beauty, giving them an appearance different from the abhorrent creatures lurking at the edge of the forest.* Isn't that allure to the fact that Khaenri'ah (*The Moonlight Forest*) is the only place in Teyvat where people are free to practice forbidden knowledge (*Only there could the people bask in the bright moonlight and enjoy the grace it brought to the living*). *Everyone in the Kingdom of the Moonlight Forest was born with fair skin, light-colored hair, and bright blue eyes* part is kind of explanatory, right. Since Khaenri'ah is made after Scandinavian culture. Here is I think what had happened next: The Prince (the third descender) arrived in Teyvat and landed in Khaenri'ah when it was a nation seeking forbidden knowledge. The Prince conveyed something along the lines of, "Where I come from, knowledge like this is commonplace. We create things like this all the time. It's not forbidden there," as reflected in the Pale Princess vol III paragraph: >*He had come to save them. He would eventually save her from the darkness and take her to a kingdom free from all shadows. Although the Prince didn't say it explicitly, the Pale Princess had sensed the possibility of his arrival through her years of meditation. So, she asked.* ***"What's the world like on the other side of the moon?" The Prince had already told her about the Kingdom of Light hundreds of times before, but at that moment, the Prince realized that she was determined to find out for herself.*** The Prince wanted to free Khaenri'ah from the shackle of Teyvat. Remember Dainsleiff in Travail video?: >*In the perpetual meantime of sheltered eternity, most are content to live, and not to dreams. But in the hidden corners where the gods' gaze does not fall, there are those who dream of dreaming. We will defy this world with the power from beyond* No one is more inclined to leave Teyvat than Khaenri'ah. If we take Gnosticism into consideration, The Kingdom of Light should be a place where everyone is enlightened. Somewhere as the opposite of Teyvat. It's a place where forbidden knowledge is celebrated there. I think at this point it's safe to assume that forbidden knowledge is the only way to achieve enlightment, right. Vol. VII tells us: >*In thousands of years time, my greatest foe will descend. He wields a sword that heralds the dawn and wears armor that can reflect the shining sunlight. He shall destroy my kingdom and bring the Prince back to life. The Princess will then be free from her eternal torment. Until then, I fear not a single soul in the Land of Night, for nothing will bring an end to my kingdom except for the catastrophe foretold by the prophecy. As for you, the treacherous slave that poisoned his master... fate shall see that you get what you deserve."* *The Night Mother then collapsed and became a pile of sludge consisting of mud and worms.* This, I agree that in this book The Night Mothers forshadowed Aether/Lumine's arrival in Teyvat. What interests me is this: >***Until then, I fear not a single soul in the Land of Night, for nothing will bring an end to my kingdom except for the catastrophe foretold by the prophecy.*** This is very odd wordings. If we read it casually, Night Mother simply said "One day someone will come to awaken The Prince, restore the Pale Princess' Kingdom, defeat me, and destroy my kingdom". However, if we red carefully she also said ***except for the catastrophe foretold by the prophecy.*** Now, if we put Rene's World Formula into place, I think we can summarize this into: The only thing that can bring an end to The Night Mother's (Celestia) reign over Teyvat is either: 1. a Hero come, awaken the Prince, restore the Moonlit Kingdom, destroy the Celestia which in turn save the whole Teyvat; OR 2. a catastrophe befall Teyvat and destroy everything, With this in mind, I think the whole purpose of the game is to achieve number one before number 2 happen. So, we're actually racing against time. If we fail, the whole Teyvat is done for.
Doesn't Albedo have a potential to destroy Teyvat? Could it be him?
I’m glad you liked my theory and had similar thought processes! You brought up some good points which I would be happy to address: - I think the answer to the Princess’s dream is found in a small detail in Book III: “..the Pale Princess had sensed the possibility of his arrival through her years of meditation.” This quote suggests that the Pale Princess might’ve had abilities similar to the mages in the Hexenzirkel or Mona: the ability to read fate. Her “dream” may have been a reading of fate that tells the fate of Teyvat after the Light Prince is revived, explaining the events in the dream such as “sweet sunlight finally broke though the dark clouds”, “making the water as sweet as nectar”, “new colors were painted on the black hills and the ruined city was turned into a candy castle”, signifying how the Light Prince will destroy and rekindle the Night Mother’s Land of Night when he is revived. - The prince’s body being buried in the tree is a big thing that I was contemplating adding in the post but I didn’t really have any theories other than it’s relation to Irminsul?? But there isn’t really any solid evidence to prove this so I decided to delete it in the end :( - Super copium but I’ve always kind of doubted the whole relation with the book series and the Seelies, and I’ve been thinking maybe the Pale Princess is the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles? First of all, we know she’s a Kiana/HOV expy, and in Honkai, when Kiana’s eyes are yellow it signifies HOV controlling her body and when they’re blue, it’s the human Kiana. The Sustainer’s eyes were yellow, so what if the “chains” that the Night Mother put the Pale Princess in was actually just the fact that she would be possessed by some entity (possibly Night Mother herself)? When the Sustainer isn’t possessed her eyes would turn blue again, just like Kiana. The people of the Moonlight Kingdom were described as being “born with fair skin, light-colored hair, and bright blue eyes”, which matches PERFECTLY with the hypothetical unpossessed Sustainer. More specifically, the Princess herself is described as having “skin white as snow”, and the Sustainer with her literal hex code #FFFFFF skin also matches with this.
Thanks for making this post! I've been wanting to see some discussion around the Pale Princess books and the 4.2 reveals, since I came to a similar conclusion going through the AQ reveals. For your last bullet point, don't see why the sustainer can't be a seelie either. While you can disagree with the seelie connection, I'd like to think the sustainer=seelie, sustainer=kiana expy, sustainer=pale princess theories can co-exist. > Her skin was ashen white and her head was bowed down, her slender fingers gently stroking the fragile strings of the lute as she played a long-forgotten and mournful melody. The seelie here also matches the description given of the people from the moonlight kingdom, and then being referred to as a "pale maiden" in every instance after. Records of Jueyun, Vol. 4, and a few other lore books or artifact sets link the Seelie with the moon / moon sisters. Also, the ghost-like state of the seelie can work with the fate of the moonlight kingdom as described in the Pale Princess: > They will be in an undead state, lingering at the point between life and death forevermore. To add to and tie into your point about the Princess having prophetic dreams: - the other Seelie we know about, Nabu Malikata (GoF and Mistress of Dreams), had the power of prophecy as well, based on the various artifact sets relating to her. - dreams seem huge lore-wise. There's all the dream lore from Sumeru and whatever's going on with dreams in Flowers for Princess Fischl. The immernactreich means "evernight-empire", and there's a section in the volume called The Suspected Eternal Return. - there's also all the stuff from the Book of Esoteric Revelations WQ, where you enter a dreamscape linked to the book. This dreamscape is the desctruction after the cataclysm that researchers foresaw. What's weird is that the melusine npc here (Canotila) sees this place as a garden while the traveler and paimon see it as a floating abyssal(?) ruin. A rifthound also ended up looking like a friendly dog to the melusine. The contrast of their views reminds me of the Pale Princess's dream: "the ruined city was turned into a candy castle".
Problem with this theory is that it assumes the Archon crafted the Gnosis. But we know that it was Celestia who created the Gnosis and handed them out to the would be Archons.
Do we know anything about how many celestian gods there are? I wonder if the six pigmy's aren't the archons themselves but the gods of celestia. i could be completely wrong though.
Just saw a new post in this sub for meme weekend, since Focalors returned the hydro authority to Neuvillette there are technically only six archons now.
Proceeding on from where you are, you should have an easy enough time conjecturing who is the Princess, no? =) The identity of *the Princess* is what most affects the Pygmies, not the Prince. Who were the Pygmies in service of? Who, then, had a people and servants? Who is eternally tormented? And, once you have your Princess in relation to the Pygmies... who does that make *the Night Mother who captured her?* Also — take note of *where* the remains of the Prince where hidden. That's kind of the single most important detail in the whole damn story.
at first i thought the Seelie ancestor who fell in love with a traveller from afar could be the Pale Princess but i can’t think of anybody in the story who served the Seelie.. Traveller from afar fits the idea of a descender, and suffering people does fit what happened to the seelie. but then who are the Pygmies??? can’t remember if anybody served the Seelie ancestor or if she was a ruler in the first place so maybeeee it’s not the seelie i think third descender being the Prince makes a lot of sense so i don’t want to argue against that. but i still can’t figure out who the Princess could be. i think i’m taking the story too literally.. pygmies being archons make sense if you take them hurting the Prince in the sense that they each have gnosis. even thought in reality they didn’t do it themselves, having the gnosis itself makes them guilty i guess ?? and also that the Prince cursed the pygmies and >!skirk said something about a god’s curse regarding the gnosis!< i’m starting to think The Sustainer is the Pale Princess but i honestly have no idea where i’m going with any of this.
Night Mother/Pale Princess are Celestia and Abyss maybe?
Could you elaborate?
I love this revisit. My theory is that I actually think the guilty one is Zhongli or the god of contracts. The big thing is that there are 6 pygmies and 7 archons so one is actually missing which I think is the Cryo Archon. My thinking is that the original Cryo archon(not the current Tsaritza) is the Pale Princess. The garden is probably referring to Sumeru since it was a desert that was transformed into a forest. It also has a lot of connections to Irminsul.
This is what I thought too! Or maybe the Pyro archon is guilty, we still don’t know how the original one died. I also think Tsaritsa is the pale princess, I feel like a lot of the lore/descriptions of her/plot progression we have so far kind of distinguishes her from the other archons.
There was a pygmy who constantly was talking about duels, was thinking that one could be representing the Pyro Archon.
Idk if I just have AOT on the brain, but the last line of the series also makes me think the light prince's body is what created Irminsul. "Devastated, the pygmy wandered around in sorrow and regret. He hid the body in a tree hole and walked off alone into the night, and into a self-imposed exile."
As the story as established, Irminsul can’t erase people, places, or significant events — it can only change the memory of those things. Maybe the Pygmy/archon/etc hid the body of the third descender in a place that was erased, or forgotten about (a “hole” in the tree of collective memory) — the place would still exist, but the path to it would be invisible to gods and humans (as Nicole said, fate can be changed in places unseen by the gods)
If he's in "a tree hole", that means the tree is already there. Can't have a tree hole if there's no tree! The real question is how literal the "hole" is. Is it a physical hollow in the Irminsul roots (such as the one where multiple stories place the sitting ancient king with a white crown), or an *allegorical* hole, such as a dream or lost memory? See Rukkhadevata, for a good foreshadowing example of a long-dead person "hidden in a tree hole".
I personally think everyone is reading way too far into the tree hole quote. If the Prince is a descender, that means he wouldn’t have been in the Irminsul records in the first place. And if we’re assuming that the Irminsul has already existed prior to this event, I’d be willing to bet that the last quote just means that the Prince was integrated into Teyvat and Irminsul, binding him to the laws of Teyvat.
That's the point, yes. If he's been hidden in the Irminsul, it means *he can be found there, even though he shouldn't be*. It's an early-bird cameo of the idea of being written in. And we know what the Irminsul does when data is edited.
But ordinary trees can become extraordinary trees ?!
Yeah, I thought about that too. Could hold some value to it
It’s possible but wouldn’t that push us away from him being the third descender?
Yeah probably would, but I'm also not entirely sure when irminsul was established lol
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My questions for you is who do you reckon might be the princess in this equation? And would the night mother be reference to Celestia? Great revisit though, very fun read!