#genshinimpact #genshinlore #furina #focalors
yo im not gonna lie i was gettin cooked on that nahida video lol. I still stand my claim that zhongli knew she was captured because its never explicitly stated one way or another, but alot of u disagree and thats ok. Anyway talking about the hydro archon focalors, and judging her short reign as archon cause weve been talking about all the archons recently so why not. maybe ill circle back to zhongli cause at this point hes the only one I havnt done yet. still waiting for the archon outfit to playable for furina please gpqsdinbvāoiawdnv.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:47 Neuvillette Problems with Focalors
3:10 Furina/Focalors Lore and Story
4:40 Was Furinas suffering ok?
6:26 Furina and the value of life
#genshinimpact #genshinlore #archons #furina
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Furina wasn't just there to weep on the throne. She had to guide Nuvolette down a path where he would use his regained power to save the people – so she did have free will – she could have screwed that up if she didn't want the people saved. On a separate note, the ends justifying the means is pure evil.
Why has every single archon we've met who is the successor or has one is insane the Tsaritsa wants to wage war on Celestia Makoto thought she could take on the problem of khaenri'ah when she wasn't a combatant Rukkhadevata wipe herself from existence right I kinda forgot what Rukkhadevata's plan was and well this video is proof about how Focalors was insane which scares me if we ever get to see who Venti and Zhongli's successors will be if they die one day
I personally just really like their design-
Intriguing. The morality of Focalors' action is indeed questionable.
I'm of the belief that Furina did have free will in the first scene where she promised Focalors to act as the hydro archon. It's in this act, an act of kindness by a human to the entirety of humanity, that what Focalors calls 'justice' is born. Since as she said herself, justice is born from human interaction, as opposed to being given or ordained by a higher entity. In this sense, Focalors resigned herself into a narrative device, a literal deus ex machina, to fulfill the judgement that Furina has passed onto the humanity of Fountaine.
It would've been hella funny if she didn't die
On one hand I found Focalors to be much closer to how I expected the upcoming Hydro Archon to be like, someone who even if albeit misguided or willing to do some very questionable things as a means to an end like keeping themselves and Fontaine safe from the wrath of Celestia, knew full well what they were doing and they were incredibly unpredictable and morally ambiguous to those around them, kinda wished we got this one as the playable Hydro Archon and not Furina.
What Focalors had in front of her optimistically from this was a trolley problem. There isn't a good answer. Of course we don't want to say that Furina's suffering is ok but in a trolley problem, we probably shouldn't be blaming the person who's doing it for trying to minimize the result. Now onto morality, Focalors is effectively using herself for this. That part isn't desirable but it is the best option at hand. Did she have to separate Furina as her day 1 self? Questionable. We don't know enough about the mechanics to know if this was an option. However, we can reasonably say that it probably would have caused immediate failure if Focalors had for example ruled Fontaine for a year to let Furina develop, then tried to hand off the position. So while not ideal, there's not a great number of options here.
Also from a mathematical standpoint, you could say just as easily that not all infinities are equal. Calculus and all that. As a basic example, the number of integers that exist are infinite. The number of fractions that exist are also infinite. However, we cannot say that these two infinites are the same. The second is probably greater than the first. So your math there doesn't hold up.
Did she rob Furina of free will? I'd argue that this is not the case. Furina is Focalors' day 1 self which also knows the prophecy because Focalors already knew it. Yes, she's confused. This isn't ideal but I already went over why they couldn't give her time to develop. This rub aside, Furina at no point lost her free will. It is not as though she was programmed to be unable to deviate from the plan. If she wanted to give up, we have no reason to believe she lacked the ability to do so. Obviously, Fontaine would be doomed but this is a bad situation more than it is the fault of Focalors. Remember that Focalors doesn't like this either. It isn't just Furina giving up the 500 years. Focalors is giving up the human life and freedom that she had as part of this, gathering indemnitium to exact a death sentence on herself. Unless you have a better option that she reasonably had at your disposal, to place the blame on her is short sighted. Let me put up the situation for you that you're pushing onto Focalors.
I set you in front of your country. There's a button in front of you. If you press the button, something inhumane occurs and an innocent person dies. If you don't press the button, the country dies. If you press the button, I will hold you culpable for pushing the button. If you don't press the button, I will hold you culpable for not pressing the button.
There's 2 things wrong here and it isn't the person at the trolley problem. It is the situation itself and the person on their high horse judging the person who's in the impossible situation, looking to hold them culpable for the result. I suspect you'd be coming down on her much worse if she was just twiddling her thumbs and waiting for the end. Or would you prefer that she attempt to solve it otherwise where there's stated to be no other way she can come up with, spinning her wheels till the clock runs out so she can say she put in a good effort?
I guess the reason why I don't like her, is just due to how she described how she felt about Furina, and Fontaine. There wasn't much feeling or hint of remorse to anything she expressed to Neuvillette. A cynic would say that Focalors is a cold, and unfeeling person who is detached from humanity, an idealist would say that she was already at peace with herself, and she knew that everything will turn out alright after her passing.
her punishment is making furina suffer
Nah. She's a good Archon. Like Rukkadevata and others before her.
That gigachad voice š„š„š„
Even putting in the moral calculus, in the storyline itself, we learn that the people of Fontaine are transformed oceanids and during the very serial disappearances case, we meet an oceanid that is the conglomeration of all the victims' consciousnesses brought together into a singular being. This would indicate that even if the people of Fontaine had been dissolved that they would not have died. The only ones that would have are those who are not natively from Fontaine but all in all, the prophecy was merely fixing a mistake made by the previous hydro archon. So, when coming down to it, Furina was essentially made to suffer for no reason whatsoever. Not only that but we have seen Oceanids being capable of going beyond the water itself, so they aren't trapped by any stretch of the imagination, heck, there is even a normal boss Oceanid that you can fight that flies around and fights you using water constructs in Liyue. This could indicate that transformed Fontainians can continue their civilization in a different form with them being immortal and more interconnected, making aspects such as justice no longer necessary.
So, the moral decision should have been to get all non-native Fontainians out of the country for their own safety once the signs of the prophecy began to emerge and let the citizens dissolve. In their new state as oceanids, they could rebuild Fontaine in a new form that would reflect themselves and the knowledge gained due to their human experiences. It certainly would have been better than letting a Dragon Sovereign reclaiming its damned authority!
And, do not get me wrong, I like Neuvillette but that is still a boneheaded idea to give one of the Heavenly Principles' ancient enemies their full power back just to stop a justified enforcement action.
Great vid my guy, use of the N-word & all lol
I think we didnāt get to see enough of her in order to truly know whether she was a good god or not. The best we can say is that she cared for her people, but just caring for your people doesnāt mean youāll be a good ruler. Take Decarabian for example, he cared for his people. Thatās why he created the storm that sealed them from the frigid cold outside world, but was he a good god? No. We donāt know what acts focalors wouldāve done had there been no prophecy to deal with, therefore we cannot accurately judge her based on the info we currently have.
My opinion on Focalor in a nutshell is that she is both a good and bad God.
Dwit, was the person I always wanted to beā¦ Anyway, so then I cursed him.
I think this is a case of doing the best you can with a bad hand. It was a lose-lose situation for her. She took the hand and played it to the best of her ability.
Yes, we are the gigachad voice š¤£šš¤£š
My thoughts on her is that she literally saved her whole entire nation the plan was insane but like I mean to full on change fate the plan was going to have to and she succeeded so I canāt call her evil lol I view furina as just a part of focalor so sheās putting herself through suffering
Just a theory but I think Surtalogi was the one who created the Oratrice
Basically we never actually hear Focalor herself said that she "created" the Oratrice, she just said she use it for the plan.
Given that the Oratrice was a device created with 2 purpose:
-creating/storing/distribute energy
-and killing a god
Massive Khaenriah vibe
FOCALORS and Furina we're both two innocent beings…forced to deal with an impossible problem…
The bad archon is the previous hydro archon who foolishly created this problem in the first place… She's the one to blame for not solving it herself. Obviously im not saying making the oceanids human was wrong, but there's no way Focalors would know how to destroy the throne but the previous archon wouldn't.
Focalors wasn't human, she was an oceanid before becoming the hydro archon, humans can't become one because they're not elemental beings.
FOCALORS was a oceanid, Venti was an anemo wisp,
Meanwhile nahida is literally just a reincarnated version of rukkadevata because they didn't choose any successor.
Lol, i literally ended the hydro qeust a couples of hours ago
I guess it was fate
I can't believe people never had a lose-lose situations in their lives to discuss such an obvious thing…
Also people don't understand the power of human's soul which Furina demonstrated. She was free to say her problem out loud in any moment. Yes, it would ruin everything, but sometimes people are just don't care anymore and YOU ALL KNOW IT! And I can't believe you all ignore that fact like it doesn't exist.
Not having free will is if Furina tried to say her pain out but couldn't – for example at moment like that her voice would disappear or something. And even so you can't just deny the existance of a soul's power. There are people in our world who have no other choice but to suffer. And it's only in their free will to live or to go and commit suicide. It's only in their free will to find a way to be happy or to cry every day blaming everyone around them. And then there's people who choose to be egoists, be mean to others, do some bad things and so on, trying to justify their actions by their "bad life" or "suffering".
And look at Furina: she suffered for 500 years but now she is a normal human, even a pretty positive. She doesn't blame anyone and she chose to move forward and live her life as she can.
So instead of trying to find "who to blame", you guys need to learn something from people like Furina :/
The whole purpose of stories like this – to see the power of soul, of heart, of love and try to be like those heroes, who could give everything they have for others.
Everything else doesn't really matter.
I'd like to know why focalors made furina a completely powerless human / didn't leave her with even a fraction of her power. convincing the nation of hydro that furina is indeed their real hydro archon would have been easier if she had at least some power over the element.
also why just furina? couldn't focalors have made even just an intelligent familiar for her? focalors knew furina would be playing her pretend role for a very long time. furina having someone else to talk to at the end of the day about topics that she couldn't discuss with anyone else and share her burden with would have greatly eased her suffering. having your body double in a good or fair mental state would mean that they're less likely to break down and potentially spill out secrets.
how does celestia not know that the fontainians weren't dissolved in the flood? I know focalors deceived celestia somehow but do they not have anyone in charge to constantly observe if teyvat is following the heavenly principles and if prophecies are actually being fulfilled? one look at fontaine after the flood and they should've immediately realized that there are still many people in fontaine when most of them, apart from non-fontainians, should've turned back into oceanids. then the hov expy would've dropped down in fontaine after the flood cutscene and nuked the place.
Now you're making assumptions here about the relationship between the two that are not necessarily true. The 4.2 AQ has a lot of deception in it. It tells you it does. Specifically:
* Focalors doesn't create Furina – they're both created by the original who volunteers to sacrifice herself in both ways (dying and suffering)
* Furina is the Hydro Archon – I suppose Focalors might be too, but Furina certainly is
* Focalors lies to Furina to say she isn't the Archon when she is ("to deceive fate you must first deceive yourself")
* This is how when Furina is put on trial it fulfils slate 3 that the Hydro Archon is put on trial. Furina is human but she's also the Hydro Archon.
* Focalors lies to Neuvillette because if Neuvillette tells Furina he could mess up the whole plan.
So Focalors isn't forcing Furina into anything. You could just as easily argue that Furina is forcing Focalors to sacrifice her life. They are both volunteered by their predecessor, who presumably had the same self-sacrificial attitude. Really it's the original who's morality you'd need to judge. You're asking if it's OK to make a moral decision to sacrifice on behalf of the future you, and the usual answer is that it's fine and that stuff happens all the time, but in this case with Furina especially she has her memories wiped so that she doesn't recall making the decision. How much does that matter? And this whole thing is another Scaramouche arc about what if you lose your memories are you still the same person in some sense? How much of you is memories and how much is the core personality that makes decisions? Well the material method of losing the memories is very different but the morals are similar. Wanderer decides he needs to take on his past reincarnation's sins. Furina takes on the self-sacrifice of her predecessor. I would say in Furina's case she's very close to the same person whereas in Wanderer's case he's quite different.
Neuvillette doesn't know why the Oratrice exists and doesn't know the whole elaborate court stuff is not because Furina likes justice (she doesn't) or because Furina is interested in justice (she isn't) but because the plan to rescue Fontaine requires a court case be made against the Hydro Archon with a rigged result, and that is the sole reason for the whole Oratrice stuff. Well OK and to collect energy I guess so two reasons both of them having nothing to do with justice; energy and rigging the last court case.
The court cases become a bit of performance because Furina likes the theatre. Simple as that.
Now you call Furina the lesser being but think about it. One of them gets to live after the plan is over, the other doesn't. One is stuck in a box in isolation for 500 years. The other has a life. One gets to be a human which we're told is the one wish that she had all along (in common with all the other Oceanids). So Furina is really the greater partner in this team and the one with the greater responsibility and frankly she seemed to get the smarts and the talent. But then how smart do you need to be to sit in a box? The only time Focalors seems senior is that she has to explain to Furina what she is to do. Now that could have been all handled with a letter to herself frankly. There's also the part where Focalors claims she named Furina but that seems doubtful because Focalors is the one who only has an Ars Goetia name, not a personal name as if she is more of a personification of god-stuff than a real person with real feelings or will. Indeed Furina shares the name "Focalors" and is the Hydro Archon. I suspect that the god that existed before the split also had both names, a personal name of Furina and an Ars Goetia title of Focalors. As is normal for an Archon. When she split the personal name was inherited by the human that she wanted to become, while the god-in-a-box kept the impersonal god code name. True Focalors claims she named Furina but she may just mean "I had to tell her what her name was". If that scenario isn't true then we don't know what the name of the original Archon was before the split, or why neither of the two halves ever used that name.
And they're not exactly two distinct people. In the memory scene where they meet Foclaors says to Furina, sure, call me "Mirror-me". And at the end Focalors says something about having to apologize to "myself" (meaning Furina). So it's a bit of both. They're separate people, but they're not. They're one person split into two things. Even the names get split between them both. Focalors says that she is "Focalors' Divinity" at one point as if the prior being was different from herself, which again is yes and no.
Furina's suffering wasn't incidental; it was the heart of the plan. It is absolutely necessary for the saving of the people of Fontaine for Furina to be deceived (by herself) and therefore Focalors lies to her telling her that she isn't the Hydro Archon but that she has to act as the Hydro Archon. In reality she is the Hydro Archon and she also has to act as the Hydro Archon. She also has to suffer so as to fulfil the prophecy (but she can't be told this of course as that might nullify her suffering).
And on the whole I actually think Furina's fake persona is pretty much what her personality would have ended up like anyway.
You know, i just realizing
Focalors is very similar with Ei
In so many aspects
I dont think she will die as normal human because she is also a oceanid too most probably we dont know much about fontaine for now maybe in 4.6?
We all know that furina was the self sacrificing kind. For her to enact the plan she had to seperate her humanity to make a reality.
Now, Dawit is a fully-fledged content creator strong enough to judge the Archons
7:37bruh š¤£
Is sounds like you're laser focused on potraying Focalors as someone who maligned Furina. They are the same fictional person.
She (the archon) put het trust in her (human) self, knowing she would do the right thing If given the choice and not be selfish, she (as a god) also paid the price in the end.
One suffered for 500 years, as a countdown to the beginning of her life, all to save her people.
One suffered for 500 years as a countdown to her death, all to save her people, also knowing she put her other self through living hell.
I've seen a lot of people vilify Focalors for making Furina suffer, but the problem is that there simply was no better alternative. The prophecy was an absolute goliath of a problem, and Focalors was the one left with the unfortunate decision of how to deal with it. I want to touch up on Furina here for a second- because what's important to recognize here is that Furina too is part of the Hydro Archon.
See, the 'Original Focalors' was practically gone the moment she chose to split herself, all that was left was the remnants of the person she once was and the remnants of the god she would be, Furina & Focalors respectively. (And since the divinity got most of the memories, we can basically get a grasp on OG Focalors' thought process through her). What's important to understand is that when Focalors was asking Furina to play her part, she wasn't asking any old human, she was asking her other half. And the thing is, Furina would never have said no, not because she was made for it or anything, but because the Orginal Focalors had already decided it needed to be done and while Furina didn't receive any memories from the split, she did receive Focalors' morality & sense of justice, something that was there since Day 1 of her becoming human.
Furina's suffering wasn't right of course- and Focalors did see that. It's one of the reasons she feels it's right for her to execute herself, as stated so in the game. But the problem is, there was no other choice. Attempting to deal with prophecy herself would just result in a repeat of Remus and Remuria. The act needed to defy the prophecy was so immense, that she could only trust a version of herself to have the will needed to defy it.
If there is one thing I'm curious about, it's if Focalors could've left Furina with a better vessel than a human body. Like, we know divine puppets like Wanderer can be created, though in fairness maybe Focalors didn't since the technology is heavily implied to be Khaenri'ahn, but with a vessel that could actually defend itself would've taken a large amount of strain off Furina would've been a big help. (Seriously, the moment actually decided to test Furina's combat skill they immediately came to the conclusion that she wasn't a god. I feel like Focalors took a big gamble here). Especially since if Furina can back her words up with power, no one would doubt her validity.
Final note: I feel like as a governing Archon, Focalors didn't really get a chance to shine because she dedicated herself immediately to the prophecy. Her twisting her own ideal and judicial system for power is messed up, but again, not very many options.
I still have some issues when I hear the word "created"… š I find it misleading. Furina is what Focalors' divinity left behind, not created. Furina is the body and soul that were once inhabited by the memories and whatever that we saw in that Oratrice subrealm. I do not find it fair to say that Focalors' divinity is the continuation of the being while Furina is just what, a waste? I am pretty sure it was implied quite enough that Furina is what Focalors wanted herself to be in the future/to have ever been. She never wanted to be a god. Just like Furina never wanted to pretend to be a god. They both accepted that hand and did what they had to do – what they felt was just.
In essence, I do not think there is much point in pondering whether Focalors' divinity gave Furina a choice or not… Neither of them were ever given choice. They both sacrificed themselves – Focalors as a whole sacrificed "every fiber of her essence/being" for her people. But also found a way to live her life as an ordinary human, albeit scarred by her fate. Furina is now the true continuation of Focalors' existence, even without memories (Sob.).
Small note, even tho yes, infinity plus infinity equals infinity, we can still claim that one infinity is bigger than the other. š I think the core of the problem of the scales is that she could not possibly choose to sacrifice others, only herself – hence making the choice obvious. And honestly, I think this selflessness is the true essence behind Focalors, both her current self as much as her past, godly self.
Life is tragic and she was given an impossible choice – yet she managed to both save everyone and also save herself. This is what I see as the true genius of her plan, not the whole "fooling the heavenly principles". After all, her "justice" is the continuation of existence.
furina best girl of genshin impact
This might all be a part of someone else's plan based on this:
– "In recognition of Plathās interest in Nietzsche, Christina Britzolakis provides an insightful analysis of the Nietzschean themes of Plathās poem, āArielā. She argues: āArielā is a thoroughly Nietzschean poem, a meditation on Zarathustraās dictum that āthe fleetest beast to bear you to perfection is sufferingā." (Zarathustra is referenced in Flowers for Princess Fischl Book) Like Skirk says several people are seeking "perfection".
– Another Neuvi voiceline says that /Furina/ not /Focalors/ gave up her spot in the "limited" human audience for Neuvilette but maybe this is something for 4.6+ ? This is probably based on the "six realms of rebirth".
– It is interesting that despite how highly Focalors speaks about Furina all she really gives as a goodbye is "Please live happily as a human" and just like that her last connection to potential "family" is gone and now all Furina really does is stay at home eating macaroni. It wouldn't be surprising if she had that loneliness syndrome (also maybe hints of an alt personality like Layla? her behavior in the last part of the AQ is really weird as pointed out by Neuvi). But maybe Focalors also has same emotional problems considering they are essentially the same person. The ideas of "family" and "love" overall seem to be broken in Fontaine. Egeria was heavily connected with the idea of love and Focalors/Furina isn't. There's some kinda deeper theme playing out here but ig we'll see.
– There's also whatever the "heavenly principles" is and however it works that's still unknown. It seems like it's not enough to "trick the prophecy" but the Archon position entirely needs to be gone?
– According to Narz Ordo quests and the "world order formula" this would be the last time the world would be remade if not for what happened in Fontaine. It says someone has gained control of life, someone has opened up the "beast realm", and the Traveler is here to change things up. So this is about more than just Fontaine I guess.
foƧalors is that type of toxic mother who says aww you can be anything my dear daughter but she actually means you can be anyone I want you to be in order to be useful to me. if i were to judge foƧalors i would give her wriothesley method of judgement. im sorry but those kids who happen to grow like furina suffer usually for 20-30 years in best cases yet furina had 500 years of pain and complete madness. im sorry foƧalors is the most inhumane archon, steps and levels ahead of morax and belzebul. even they are somehow now helping humanity and understand humanity. even neuvillette has understood the scale of foƧalors' plan and how deeply it had affected furina yet he was supposed to be an emotionless dragon sovereign. idk how to feel about it cause foƧalors still achieved the best for humanity but at such a shitty cost i would have never forgiven if she stayed alive
to think about it nahida and and furina are some what similar to one another,theyāre both born and being left by their creator to play in their act somehow except no knew the real focalors unlike rukkhadevata and nahida isnāt a human
The points you brought up all point to Furina's particular Hydro Vision being even more special. Not only was she the first to be given a hydro vision from the Hydro Dragon Sovereign (and yes, one of Neuvillette's stories/voice lines confirms that he gave it to her deliberately), with a special casing and the ability to control both Pneuma and Ousia (only character to do this in the game so far iirc), it was also a reward and sign that she had finally begun the process of healing from the trauma of being on that stage and in that role for 500 years.
I don't really see that she's a bad god, like you said she had to deceive the Heavenly Principles to make sure her people were saved.
Furina did accept the mission to undertake this role. It was sad yes but she was the Leading Lady in the most dramatic trial for all to see.
And technically Focalors sacrificed herself completely like shes dead along with the Throne of Hydro and Furina was allowed to live as a human.
She did something incredible and if she wasn't able to convince the dragon sovereign to forgive humanity and care for them.
Fontaine would've been fucked lol
I think the whiny voice is accurate for the Genshin fandom tbh lmao
Wait. Aren't all Fontainians originally Oceanids?
Did you know in theoretical mathmatics, there are magnitudes of infinity? 8:08
I remember vaguely that there is a term called Allymph (I am sure I spelled this wrong.) This technique was made totackle the Bernardt Tarfskey Paradox:
If you have a infinity hotel with infinite rooms and infinite attendants filling them, then there will always be 1 more room and 1 more guest, but if by some happenstance the rate of implementation is pushed up, what then? The value of infinity is in absolute values not the same as it was in its previous iteration, thus you must then count infinity by a different means when considering absolute value.
In short I like how you think, there is no right or wrong here: the objective truth is that Focalors sacrificed an eternal existence and willfully chose death. She saved Furina from demise at the cost of centuries-long trauma.
Forgiven or not, Focalors, like Egeria before her is dead.
The Kequing in me would say, "It is noble for a god to die so that Humanity may flourish…" And I suspect she would ( if informed about the facts and inquired on her take) find Morax Barbatos and Baal wanting.
But I also believe she would consider Nahida's decision to be a good first step for a young new Goddess.
Furina always had her free will. She chose to take on the burden of suffering for the sake of others. But she could have abandoned that duty at any time.
Duty creates destiny.
Often in life, we have responsibilities thrust upon us that we never wanted but have a moral obligation to fulfill. Of course, we still have the free will to reject our responsibility but that will make us a bad person.