You know it's a real shame Gaijin's so against this game. This new video he just put out has so much real world culture and mythology that I've actually brought up before myself.
But here he's actually pointed out 2 things that I didn't know about that actually answers one part about one of my biggest theories.
I've probably talked this to death already but it's almost proven fact at this point that Yae was the old Archon. Among other things though I talked about the revised version of the story where the original Archon was killed by Ei and then kitsunetsuki'd into Yae Miko's body possessing her. This way she's no longer a true Archon but she's still got the knowledge and wisdom of an old Archon.
What I didn't know was how much more fitting it all was. In this Gaijin video he talks about the traditional role of the miko. Now any of us anime fans know plenty about miko already right? Shrine maidens. High spiritual power. Hama no Ya or Fuuin no Ya the sacred arrows for you Inuyasha fans.
Well that was just scratching the surface. It looks like the miko's true power was specifically to house the spirit of a kami. Archon = god = kami. Yae was tasked as a miko to house the spirit of the old Electro Archon who used kitsunetsuki to merge with her. She even wields a Gohei which Gaijin points out could house the spirit of a kami a Goshintai. (Literally meaning Blessed Body of God) If this all was part of MiHoYo's research too then I salute them.
(And also to AlphaTrigger who discussed with me on how this kitsunetsuki might work how do you feel about this explanation?)
Side Note: Also yes if you got through the whole video the tanuki-tsuki is the same tsuki in kitsunetsuki and means the same thing: Possession. Also he mentioned what I talked about before which is that Japan mixed up the tanuki and kitsune folklore because the Chinese word they used for them were for just fox giving their concept of the animals an identity cr****. As a shorthand you can treat all tanuki powers as kitsune powers too.
But Gaijin's video actually throws in more direct parallels. In one of my many topics on this I likened Yae to Ame-no-Uzume a Shinto goddess who used the Suzu Bell to perform a Kagura dance that brought Amaterasu back out of her room when she got snippy at her brother and locked herself away.
In Gaijin's video that is exactly the Shinto goddess who is taking on the miko's body in the game. On top of that Gaijin uses a variation on the Amaterasu story where she actually comes out of her room because she sees her reflection and realizes her importance to the world.
Here's a voice line from Yae.
I brought this up before to point out how Yae for all her talk about being a follower of Eternity is 100% still being her God of Transcience self. Of course you can take it at face value but to me after seeing the video this is MiHoYo's cheeky jab at the legend. And since Yae's weapon is the Kagura's Verity Suzu Bell we know they researched this myth for her character too. I love that they adapted it into a comment about Ei's Euthymia and concept of Eternity.
Well hopefully Gaijin comes around. He's always struggling to find more examples to use in his cultural analysis videos and there's at least a dozen videos he could do on just the Inazuma stuff in Genshin alone across his different series. But you guys see the little clip at 1:48? While I'm pretty sure this was just to add popular references to the concept of miko he's bringing up I'm going to say there's hope.
And since he's branched into Chinese stuff because of his research into Japan that means Liyue is up for grabs for him too. On top of that he's gone to other cultures over the years too. When Pokemon went British with Galar he went with it for an episode. There's no reason why he couldn't touch on any of the other 5 regions outside his specialty one day.
Well fingers crossed.
Tips and Tricks from a Super Casual Genshin f2p
