So yanno that scar Kaeya has on his eye?
What if I told you Diluc may not have hurt him like that on purpose and it was just an accident?
This is typed on my phone at work so pardon the typos. I'll clean it up later and make it prettier.
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PREFACE
Okay so this is actually a somewhat surprisingly missed detail from both English and Chinese, though the Chinese does go more into implied interpretations and possibilities with the wording. (I really need to get those translations up but I do want them fully reviewed first. Story V is kicking my ass.)
Let's do a quick synopsis so we are all on the same page, and I'll include some info:
When Kaeya showed up, he was too late to save Crepus. In the Chinese, they expressly state that the scene of Crepus getting wrecked (skill issue) was particularly gruesome. The hanzi is usually used for murders and accidents- so this was actually gorey and violent. Diluc had to put him out of his misery because he was suffering so much in the aftermath.
Kaeya considers this one of his major failures, if not one of the only.
The text says neither of them were able to remain calm or behave how a knight should. You can read it as they easily went into shock. (失去了骑士应有的冷静)
Kaeya kinda laughs and talks to himself about how surprising it is- that even Master Crepus (someone he viewed very positively until this second) would use such a dark power.
Before the day even ends, Kaeya decides this is the best time to come clean and goes to Diluc. (Silly, stup/d boy.)
The hanzi says he "put out everything, including the tray" (和盘托出)- so our boy word vomited. He said anything that came to mind, knowing Diluc was going to be furious.
So he isn't surprised when Diluc decides to fight him.
We do not know what this fight was supposed to prove, or what it meant. It is never stated what Kaeya said, or what the fight's end goal actually was.
However, Kaeya notes this is the first time he comes forward as his true self, with no lies, no secrets. He fought Diluc one on one, with no holding back for the first time ever. It noted a strange power was welling inside him, and he could feel it.
And then he used cyro for the first time, hitting one or Diluc's flaming blows directly and the impact exploded into a hurricane. (Venti?? Is that you?)
The shock stunned both of them out of the fight, Kaeya's vision found him, and the fight ended. Kaeya sees his vision as a badge of pride for coming clean and being himself for the first time but also a heavy reminder that he will have to live with the weight of his lies.
This is where the timeline gets a bit fuzzy. It's hard to tell, but it seems Diluc didn't actually leave immediately.
Kaeya sent a letter to tell him the Eroch things were underway. Just short and informative.
This is Letter One.
Then came the letter from Alice. She is the one who suggested Diluc go travelling. And he responds to her letter she may be right, and that Klee will be fine. She, and Alice, can stay at the winery whenever they like.
In Letter Two, Kaeya is telling Diluc if he wants to go, do it now and do it at night so he can avoid saying goodbyes. It's not said how Kaeya found out or who told him.
Letter Three, Kaeya notes that this is when Jean may have became acting grand master(?). She was at least over the Eroch thing. Varka sent Diluc a letter around this time, and Diluc responded to him.
This is also when Kaeya decided to stay at the winery for a while. We have a letter from Elzer confirming it was Nice(tm).
Then in Letter Four, Kaeya is teasing Diluc about his eye. Kaeya also mentions this in his personal notes on the back of his letter from his father- he was actively messing with Diluc (easier to date this in the CHS than the English because he mentions letting the ruse of his being blinded go on a little longer). This is also the first time we see Diluc respond to Kaeya with "I know you're not blinded" fussing.
So by Letter Four, we have the boys actively talking again and picking on each other like they do in the present. They continue to do so off and on from there out.
Not sure when Letter Five happens but Kaeya is right back whining and being a tart. There is a line that indicates kaeya is actually sorry for misleading him about his eye- he wanted to tell him later. (But he was having a little fun)
The next clear indication of the timeline is Diluc returning with Jean's letter. Somewhere in this time is when the Collei events happen. I think this is shortly after that when the letters really start picking up between Kaeya and Diluc about the Dark Knight Hero, but there's no mention of it so it's rather hard to tell.
Jean is pretty cut and dry: there's a mysterious dude on the loose, stay safe.
Kaeya coming in with basically the Genshin equivalent of "gee! Oh gosh! I wonder who this stranger could be!? Oh golly what a mystery!"
This is Letter Six.
Diluc responds to Jean.
Apparently Varka doesn't buy something or the other or can't stand these two being so flighty- so he sends Kaeya to Dawn Winery.... To get a statement. Sure.
This is Letter Seven.
In Letter Seven, Kaeya gives Diluc an out, saying he doesn't have to see him if he doesn't want to OR he won't say anything about knowing exactly who the dark knight hero is. It's very vague which one he actually means, and typical of Kaeya to do word games like this. Depending when the Collei event happens, they were already talking in person, so it's likely the latter.
Letters Eight and Nine, Kaeya just keeps writing Diluc. This may seem a bit strange- but he was Diluc's informant long before Vile(?) and the Angels Share spy staff entered the picture around Letter Four. He is recounting everything happening about the DKH, knowing full well it's Diluc and it's blatantly obvious.
Kaeya subtly suggests Diluc come clean about it- that maybe they could work together- things are getting more dangerous in Letter Nine- and Diluc declines, telling him to take better care of himself instead, he will be just fine.
So on, so forth. You know the story.
Nine letters all described as "beautiful handwriting" and kept close.
There's a subtle hidden detail about this specific number, for those who don't know, Chinese has a special importance on numerology. Nine is commonly used in romance and symbolizes eternality. A sly little detail.
Here's a link to all the letters in order (EN) if you need a refresher. There's a couple small details that aren't matching up from the Chinese but nothing particularly critical to my knowledge to the reason I brought all this up. So let's move on.
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ANALYSIS
Okay so here's the points I am going to point out in this tragic looking backstory.
First is that Diluc is notably a claymore user and has been for a very long time.
If he's going to fight Kaeya one on one, even with a one handed sword, the exact precision it would take to ONLY cut his eye would be phenomenal and extremely deliberate. While this is fantasy setting, even other games get scrutinized for head injuries like this (ex: Final Fantasy 8- Squall and Seifer).
In addition, and this is is a bit of a lost trivia, Diluc's fire is INSANELY hot. The hanzi used on one of his skills actually doesn't say "Blessing of the Phoenix" at all. It's actually called "Wings of Meltdown" (熔毁之翼) using the same hanzi for a nucIear meltdown. Those flames are blazing hot, and not to be taken lightly. A weird bit of translation mess-ry but not unusual. Just weird. (I like Wings of Meltdown better, personally.)
The text says that Kaeya's ice and Diluc's fire met head on, causing an explosion.
(红与蓝碰撞，爆出惊人的飓风 - 爆出 is 'burst out' or explosion. It has other translations but this seems to fit best based on the fact it causes a cyclone/hurricane in its wake.)
This is an actual thing in science. It's why you don't put a hot pan in a sink of cold water- and if you throw a piece of dry ice into something hot, or even just water, it explodes. It's a pressure reaction and very normal.
Mind you, Kaeya's ice forms blades- we see it all the time. He has insane cyromancy, though this was the first time it had ever been used canonically.
It's very possible it wasn't Diluc who hurt him- it was his own ice from the pressure exploding of something cold meeting something extremely hot. A sharp blade of cryo whacking him in the face would cause a much smaller injury in contrast to the exact, insane coordination it would take to do the same with a sword that was actively on FIRE.
A friend of mine believes his c4 shield popped- maybe he got cut by the glass. Another thinks it could have been his elemental getting countered. It's plausible to even say one or both swords shattered on the impact.
Regardless of details, the blast or "hurricane" it caused stunned them both out of it. Kaeya was now bleeding, picked up his vision, and the fight ended on a rather somber note.
So if this is how it actually happened- there was no "die, traitor" angst and it was just an unfortunate accident in result of a messy fight... That changes a lot of how the fandom sees this event.
The text never says Diluc wanted to kill, maim, or even hurt him permanently.
It never says that Kaeya was scared for his life in any way. (If anything, he was having a good time just not in the right mind.)
There is no indication whatsoever that this was anything more than a duel- something we see quite often in Genshin, especially now that we're in Fontaine. Sparring and fighting someone to win a fight is pretty common in literature, especially historical settings like Mondstadt.
And it actually makes a lot of sense. Diluc had already lost one person that day from their vision/delusion backfiring. The circumstance, the blood, the sheer upset of the situation- it's no wonder Diluc stopped then and there.
If it's just an accident- this would explain a lot of the behavior afterwards.
If Diluc really did try to kill Kaeya, why did he come back so quickly?
Why is he never afraid of Diluc?
Why would a guy actively annoy and pester a man that tried to allegedly kill him??
Unless he didn't.
There is more to this story than meets the eye.
Sometimes the most simple answer is the correct one. It could have just been an accident, and while they both know it, they feel guilty.
The nuance of the Chinese implies that Kaeya and Diluc VERY much care about each other as friends, but are somewhat... Awkward. Like they feel guilty but they have nothing to apologize for; or feel like they don't deserve the other party's forgiveness for what they did. This is more obvious in the other languages, but not the EN by a long shot.
There's no indication Diluc blames Kaeya.
Meanwhile, Kaeya outwardly says he doesn't blame Diluc in private notes to himself.
Both of them started the fight in their own ways.
They are both at fault and they blame themselves.
Kaeya for picking the fight knowing Diluc was upset and making it worse.
Diluc for actually starting it and causing Kaeya to get hurt- something that wouldn't have happened if he hadn't done this or that. This also plays into the Sajiao dynamic they have- Diluc is supposed to take care of Kaeya as the older party. (Something he does all the time if you watch him in game- he almost never denies Kaeya anything has never said the word 'no' to him.)
Kaeya bounces back from this relatively quickly and pretty much goes right to annoying Diluc the second he gets an indication that Diluc isn't still mad at him (the winery letting him stay, Diluc listening to him, and possibly the way Diluc responded to Varka.)
By letter four, shortly after Diluc left Mondstadt, they were already bantering again and exchanging light teases and jabs. Kaeya continues to do so, and almost immediately after Diluc returns as the "dark knight hero" and events with Collei. He knew long before game start who the DKH was and was just picking on him again when that story quest came around. The letters rather prove that- Kaeya trying to a get a rise out of Diluc is just how they communicate. (Again with the Sajiao)
The English version does not portray their bantering well. Kaeya is very much just being a brat and a cheeky one at that. He knows. He literally made Huffman vibe there just to make him sweat because it was funny to pick on them both at the same time, probably drinking a wine from the upper floor musing over the show.
Ballads, the GAAs, Ventis Story Quest, and more kinda make them more jerks to each other in the EN but it's really just bantering and you get the feeling this isn't abnormal between them even before the fight. If you read the letters four through six knowing Kaeya is just needling him, they're actually really funny. You can practically hear Diluc's exhausted sigh.
Also: all the letters Diluc got while travelling? He kept and held close to him until he returned home to Mondstadt. He still has them, the ugly vase, and now a lovely lamp. Haha.
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OUTRO
So yeah, there's one of my latest notes and theories- Kaeya's scar could just be considered an unfortunate accident pretty easily... If he even has a scar. He could just be reading Diluc some more LOL.
They literally don't have anything to reconcile because it was just an accident, but they're silly losers and blame themselves for the events that caused it.
Nothing wrong with the angst take on it- but there is more than one option.
Figured I'd share my findings here because why not...? I've had this a little on Twitter and discord already but may as well share the fun of discovering a slightly different angle of a story we thought we knew. It's such a small thing but one tweak causes a domino effect to occur.
If you'd like to discuss this with me feel free, but please don't call them the ragbros. I find the word gross looking. It looks like they're two trans men having a period together. Idk who came up with that but they didn't think it through. (And tbh no other sibling dynamic has a tag at all unless it's lncest so hmmm kinda defeats the point of it, LMAO)
I'm a shipper anyway so I don't see them as brothers in the first place. Kaeya's a ward. He's no more familial to Diluc than Tohru to Kyo in fruits basket or Winry to the Elric brothers in FMA or Harry and Ginny in Harry Potter.. I have other posts about that but be advised who you're talking to if you wanna go at this.
Otherwise, have fun discussing and thank you for reading as always!
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#CrownFinch, #Kaeluckae #Kaeluc #Luckae
