[4.4] Istaroth is NOT the God of Time – A Genshin Impact Theory



Although she is called the “Ruler of Time” by the people of Enkanomiya, I’ve always found it odd that Istaroth only seems to have associations with death…

So I began to wonder – what if she’s not “THE” god of time, but simply “A” god of time? This video is an exploration of this idea!

**TIMESTAMPS**

00:00 Introduction
01:12 The Thousandth Wind
07:28 Istaroth
12:24 Tarot
21:47 Time Tampering
32:29 Closing Thoughts (Bonus Theories)

**RELATED VIDEOS**

Time is (not) an illusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_AuBoJXxcc

**SPOILER WARNINGS**

(Assumes all viewers have completed all available Archon Quests up to version 4.4)
– Ei’s Story Quest 2
– Aranyaka
– Narzissenkreuz (very minor)
– Venti Story Quest 1
– Inversion of Genesis
– Time limited events (Winelesefest, Shadows Amidst Snowstorms)
– Time and Wind
– Genshin Manga (prologue)

**CITATIONS & FURTHER READING**

https://pastebin.com/rHaCtPv0

**CREDITS & ATTRIBUTIONS**

https://pastebin.com/7g3q4sxR

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38 thoughts on “[4.4] Istaroth is NOT the God of Time – A Genshin Impact Theory”

  1. With all the talk about artifacts it made me think that Mabey each artifact piece is part of the identity of the originator. The flower representing their birth, the sands representing their timespan, the flower representing their death, the goblet their soul or aether and the crown their will or memories.

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  2. Gonna throw this out there. What if Venti is meant to be associated with Hermes. Hermes escorted souls to the underworld, invented the lyre in greek mythology, and could fly.

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  3. From Istaroth being the only god that did not abandon Enkanomiya (seemingly against the wishes of the Primordial One or whoever won the war) to her helping Ei plant the Sacred Sakura in a manner that freed it from the Heavenly Principles, I think she's likely either against the Heavenly Principles or like, noncommittal at best lol

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  4. A fun factiod that may or may not support this theory, is that the fates are also all daughters of Nyx, the goddess of Night. What hangs around in the sky at night again…?

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  5. 28:30 it could also be that in block time, since everything exists in every point of time, removing something at a certain point in time does not completely remove it, as the other point in time can still "echo" it back into existance. this explanation would also explain why nahida's parable was actually able to exist in the first place. if there were no story for her to base the parable on, the parable shouldnt exist, but because of how block time works, it does exist, and that allows her parable to exist

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  6. As always you blow my socks off with your inquisitive hypothesis and I love it! Hopefully we will get more hints about Venti, the relevance of Monstadt region and the whole Archon war and khaenriah.

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  7. It's an interesting time theory, but I think there's already evidence time in Teyvat is not completely predetermined. By that I refer to all the stuff with reweaving fate and how if Teyvat exists within the greater multiverse of Hoyoverse games, then it cannot exist on the imaginary tree. In fact there's already evidence for that in the Travellers about section. 'the world will burn no more, for you shall ascend', which seems to suggest Teyvat is some sort of bubble universe. Speculation on game links aside, however, both Venti and Zhongli have some odd things to say about our future journey. Venti makes a point of saying the journey itself has meaning, and Zhongli is intent on us remembering things so that they still exist… And back when Zhongli says 'if you make the same choices as that person, many difficulties lie ahead. But as long as you believe you are walking the right path, everything has meaning' (someone correct me if I've got the quote wrong, I think that was it). At the time we thought he was referring to our sibling, but what if timey wimey shenanigans, he was referring to a different version of ourselves. 'We' were the ones who made him sign a contract. Which leads us to the logical conclusion that Teyvat runs in a cyclical time loop. This normally would imply predetermined timelines, but in this case it appears you can still change time, and more interestingly, don't need to time travel to do so. All you have to do is change the present, and that will not only effect the future, but also the past. However, it seems this cycle we are making different choices than the past, and that, I think, is due to Venti's meddling, who oh so interestingly jokes about knowing songs from the past, present, and future… But Venti isn't a descender, and cannot change the cycle, so he's nudging us to do so. Also, wouldn't it be funny if our sibling's journey is just our journey, and the cycle just oscillates between us. Just a thought.

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  8. this totally goes with a theory I had when it was revealed that Neuvi gives out visions. I had a theory that the reason Ei and Neuvi had conflicting reasonings in how visions were given it was because nevi is right. Each vision is given by the current archon, this also matching with their ideals. Ei only stopped giving out visions since the vision hunt decree, because at that time no one would have agreed with not having visons but during the outside time when 500 years ago she gave the gnosis to Miko visions were still being given out even when ei was in her plane. She has the misconception that she never gave out visions because her in that moment didn't agree with her understanding of eternity. But her future self did. SO visions were still given out that is why people like Shinobu, dori, basically any electro character had visions because TIME was never taken into account when she planted the seed in makotos consciousness TIME didn't matter, the tree was planted 500 years ago and when Ei planted that tree that solidified her ideals of eternity, so her ideals were always the same no matter what time it was whether it was 500 years ago or now, the only thing that mattered was the tree. So Ei WAS giving out visions she just wasn't aware that her future self was giving the visions not her current. ( lol I had a heated debate with someone about this but they couldn't understand what I was talking about when I meant that TIME never mattered I'm glad someone else got a feeling in what I meant)

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  9. Some interesting things this video made me think of that kind of connect to these theories.

    1 – Thinking about the Mare Jivari, which Stanley constantly describes as a place where the winds don't blow. When thinking about the new context given in these theories, that makes that more interesting. A place where the dead cannot pass on? That idea is supported with how that quest plays out (or maybe how that quest plays out supports the theory, anyway…I guess they support each other) in which the fake Stanley says the real Stanley's memory is lost because he died in that windless land. At the very least, Venti's story quest is a LOT more interesting now.

    2 – This part may have actually been mentioned in that video about time you referenced, as I admit I didn't watch that one yet but rather just went off your breakdown in this video, but the block time idea and how you portrayed it with the cube and being at different places at different times made me think of Dottore and how he described the clones of himself.

    As always, amazing video.

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  10. I know Black Swan belongs to star rail but given her resemblance to the Welkin moon character could they share attributes since Hoyo sometimes has characters that look alike/ have similarities in character

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  11. The Horae were associated with law more than justice, specifically the concept of "natural" laws! The biggest natural law in this context, and the central connection between their seasonal associations, is the progression of the seasons – spring is followed by summer is followed by autumn. That's, y'know, a hard, immutable law of nature

    If there is indeed a connection between the moon sisters/shades and the Horae, well… as they say, Teyvat has its own "laws"!

    (Note: there are actually two triads of Horae – the first being the triad pertaining to the seasons and natural laws mentioned here, and the second (Dike, Eunomia, and Pax) pertaining more to, let's say, "civil" justice and good order. Imo it's an interesting contrast: natural law and order vs civil law and order)

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