Looking at the region on my bored "let's go look beyond the boundary" expeditions I got to thinking. I'm not sure how many of you guys saw this but some of the fandom are asking why Sumeru represents multiple regions around the world unlike all the other regions which represent only one. Obviously this ends up diving into racial territory. I've seen some comments along the lines of "hey those Asians always whine that we treat them all the same and then they go and do that to someone else."
I'm going to say that we should know by now that MiHoYo's not like that but hey it's the internet. But it does warrant asking.
So why is Sumeru not just India but multiple regions?
I think I have an answer.
The picture above is a map of the Indo-European Migrations. This was a very long period in the spread of humanity that goes from all the way back to Out of Africa and into the Achaemenid Persian Empire. That's 3000BC to 500BC! It is also where we end up with the beginnings of modern day India.
But besides Fontaine and Snezhnaya aren't the rest of the regions supposed to be Middle Ages? Well we all know Inazuma is Sengoku Japan and that started in the 1400s around the same time the European Middle Ages was ending. And from my Genshin China topic we know Liyue's not Middle Ages China either. It's a whole bunch of Chinese fiction tropes from Wuxia a standard for fictional media in the culture. So for example the funeral parlor and their clothing comes from somewhere in Nationalist China circa 1911-1949. Qiqi is a Jiangshi which is Qing Dynasty era circa 1644-1911 and Ningguang's outfit comes from the modern day while her hair is I think Tang Dynasty 618-907. Her business-like personality stems from either of these periods too. So actually every region is based on a different period.
So what happened during this Indo-European Migrations era? Well one theory about a region Sumeru represents unsurprisingly is Sumer. (Sumeru minus the u!) Others point at a few of the Babylonian empires for their focus on academic studies like - art, architecture, medicine, philosophy and the maths - which relates to Sumeru being themed around wisdom. Well the Indo-European Migrations is when the Achaemenid Iranians took over the last Babylonian Empire and started the first Persian Empire. Similarly if we go with India then the Vedic tribes of this migration period go on to end the culture of Ancient India. And of course in Egypt we could talk about the Hyksos but I think I'll go with the part when that same Achaemenid Empire moved into the region later on.
What's all this even supposed to mean? Well we know that Sumeru used to be ruled by the God of the Woods and then the Cataclysm upended everything and Sumeru fell under the power of the God of Wisdom Kusanali. Now not to say she brought out some Persians and conquered the land or anything but a theme of the transition of people feels important here. Ancient India is not modern day India. Ancient Egypt is not modern day Egypt. And Mesopotamia has seen so many shifts in sovereign states I can't even keep track. Seriously there are some names that just blip in and out of existence.
Last time I suggested that maybe Kusanali was powerless to stop Sumeru's folly because maybe the sages were still loyal to the God of the Woods way of running Sumeru and wouldn't listen to Kusanali's new order. Academia the education hub of the city and main attraction predates her. It is also Academia that fans focused on when they related Sumeru to Babylonia. In the modern day we also tend to romanticize the ancient civilizations like Babylon for its creation of Gilgamesh and the Hanging Gardens or Ancient Egypt for the mysterious ways of the Pharaohs and the pyramids they left behind. Opinions on their modern incarnations are a little less romanticized.
Sumeru may be a region holding onto the past and refusing to move on. Funny enough it would be just like MiHoYo to give us a reverse of the region we just visited. Mondstadt was the City of Freedom. Venti was an absentee god but in spite of that for Acts 2 and 3 he's one of the key players. He's also very weak because he started out as just a wind spirit and most of his power came from the Gnosis. From there we moved to Liyue with the strongest of Archons who led his people directly but decided on his own to retire. So even though he was also there for Act 2 and 3 we had to do everything on our own and he was just enjoying the ride. He's an Archon that Signora didn't dare to disrespect like she did Venti and even Ei later on. From that we went to Inazuma where the Archon had an iron grip on her region and wouldn't let go causing tons of problems. We had to go and force her to retir-I mean reconsider her opinions about change and show her that her people were changing anyway. So from a city that was still changing against their Archon trying to keep things the way they were we might now be headed to a city that wants to keep things the way they are and an Archon trying to change them.
What does this mean for my theory on the city? My original theory which relates to the Dendro Element and Kusanali's personality conflicts with this idea of a powerless Kusanali. Except that it doesn't have to. Being crafty this whole powerless thing could be an act and she's not actually interested in change so much as using the notion to scare the people into rejecting it and going more and more nuts trying to keep up with the old ways. The old ways of wisdom as a currency which ties back to Kusanali wanting a solution to Celestia without attracting the attention of Celestia.
On the other hand our role in the city doesn't change. We're still here to remove the Fatui and stop their human experimentation. This will end up throwing a wrench into Kusanali's plans so she'll be upset but just like Kokomi (my theory version of Kokomi) she'll find some way to use it to her advantage. Maybe giving up her Gnosis to the escaping Fatui will play into that, forcing her people to keep trying to find a solution to Celestia (or maybe she'll blame the Tsaritsa hoping the solution ends up similar enough) to protect their region now that Kusanali can't.
Now that I think about it this Indo-European basis for Sumeru might have another point to make on what we can expect. More on that next time!
If things play out just like with Inazuma then we're actually really close to Sumeru's release. Inazuma came at v1.7 renamed to v2.0. We're currently on v2.4 and v2.5 is already likely an Inazuma-themed one because of Yae so v2.6 might be Dendro characters followed by Sumeru in v2.7 which will be renamed v3.0.
What do you guys think? Any of this likely? Or did I lose you somewhere in that rainforest (or desert) of words?
Tips and Tricks from a Super Casual Genshin f2p
