When I first dropped down into the Chasm and saw Zhiqiong coughing down there because of these dark gooey puddles my brain immediately jumped to coal mining and the fossil fuel industry.
To me it looked like MiHoYo's attempt at an in-game argument for clean energy and that was really amusing. And that was it for me. I made one more topic on it and even commented directly about Genshin hopefully getting more of us to start thinking about motivating our leaders to make the switch.
But if you watched the Kurzgesagt video above it seems there's a big push against nuclear and renewable sources of energy. It seems many countries on our side of the world are actually shying away from nuclear power and going back to fossil fuels. At the same time the country they've accused so often for fossil fuel based climate change has been pouring funding into more and more nuclear power plants and research into the technology. That was surprising to me but funny enough I happened to find this same debate going on in our Genshin community.
Kinda.
It's cute. We've never spoken but we seem to be on opposite sides of the energy debate thanks to Genshin. 
I consider the Dark Mud to be a stand in for fossil fuels based on how noxious the material is and how many deaths it causes as a result of its mining. Ashikai here suggests the Dark Mud is actually nuclear waste which is likewise toxic. We also both brought up the same part about the Adjuvants how the name is a cancer treatment.
Both fossil fuels and nuclear waste can cause cancer for different reasons. Burning fossil fuel poisons the air with carcinogens which cause a number of health problems including cancer that kills more than a million people each year. Nuclear waste or rather any exposure to nuclear radiation means being hit by ionizing particles that can damage DNA. Damaged DNA can lead to tumor formation and that to cancer.
Now this is an ongoing debate so I'm not going to coerce you guys to side with either of us. What I am going to do is talk about how choosing our sides has led to wildly different interpretations on the lore.
So for me the idea that the Lumenspars and Sky Nails come from Celestia and can purify the Dark Mud which is part of the Void makes me think us humans are just the middle men in a war between the heavens and hell the Light Realm and the Void Realm. To that extent I suggest they are both bad and it's up to the Human Realm to figure that out and deal with it.
For Ashikai the video makes it sound like she believes Celestia is good and blessing humanity with the Sky Nails and Lumenspar to purify the nuclear waste created by the use of Visions. So again Visions = bad here.
Now again I'm not going to argue the energy stuff but when it comes to Genshin theories well I believe that any theory needs to be able to stand up to scrutiny. So here's mine:
In her video she claims that the Sky Nails were sent down by Celestia to protect humanity from the Abyss and that Ley Line trees like the Sacred Sakura also do this naturally by absorbing the Dark Mud too. Here's the thing: the first nail we knew about the Skyfrost Nail in Dragonspine wasn't dropped to protect any humans. It destroyed Sal Vindagnyr. And it did so by destroying the Frostbearing Tree which is Dragonspine's Ley Line tree. We actually go to Dragonspine and revive the tree which the video does talk about but by claiming that the Dragonspine Lumenspars are Durin's blood the Crimson Agates. And finally the video states that the cold of Dragonspine is the final result of amassing too much Dark Mud.
So again the Sky Nail was the thing that destroyed the tree. We know this from all the World Quests telling us how Celestia destroyed Sal Vindagnyr. And the tree's roots soaked up Durin's poisoned blood so we helped revive it by removing the shards of the nail that were keeping it suppressed and then feeding it more blood. It is now a creepy looking red tree and it doesn't actually do anything to solve the Sheer Cold either. BUT just its name alone shows that it used to. In English the name is Frostbearing Tree a tree that bears or holds back the frost. This is even easier to see in Chinese because the name literally means Tree that Endures Winter. In other words Sal Vindagnyr is naturally a frozen wasteland and the tree was the only thing keeping the people safe. And Celestia destroyed it to protect its secrets.
Then the Sacred Sakura. It actually isn't natural at all. It's Makoto the previous Electro Archon. And you'd think this story had nothing to do with Celestia because Makoto turned herself into the tree in response to Khaenri'ah's invasion. BUT what does she say when Ei finally plants her in the future?
This move was also done against Celestia against its Heavenly Principles.
But anyway it is still awesome that a video game was able to generate a real world debate and even connect that ongoing debate to our understanding of the game's lore lol
Tips and Tricks from a Super Casual Genshin f2p
