**NOTES AND CORRECTIONS** - several people have pointed out that a rooster can be associated with fenghuangs which to me never had too much of a real association with Xiao, HOWEVER- somehow I missed one line in the developer insights that actually addresses the rooster directly by referencing someone called Mekhila. This is apparently one additional source of inspiration for him which would actually make him line up with the rest of the Chinese zodiac theory. It still does not apply to Pervases though, unless the takeaway here is that that slot could just be any bird which I admit is very possible at this point. I am surprised no one noticed this before I did ahahaa...
@@champagnepapi3742 bro, people that are on that spot know that they're loved, they just can't love themselves despite all that, they can't comprehend why they're loved by other people even tho they know for a fact they're worthless, because nobody knows you better than yourself... How I know? I'm also one of said people hahaha
“If you've got time to fantasize about a beautiful death, why not live beautifully until the end?” Gintama. We gonna die anyway, sooner or later, it is just a matter of time. why not live beautifully until that last moment?
eh. Correct me if im lacking critical information, but the 1k years ago death seems like a random guess, then apparently the fates of the other yakshas has been known, also, awakening during cataclysm seems a bit random too, as he isn't mentioned anywhere, etc.
@@LeaksHater i was actually going to ask this- that the assumption that he died 1k year ago, where did that come from- but if that is true then this timeline would work
@@zephyr4170 no idea if there is any concrete source. Maybe there is something in those puzzles in Liyue where you find one of the yaksha'a treasure or something? But my guess that its a very rought estimate in that the yakshas lived past the Archon war, but died before the cataclysm (electro and anemo yakshas excluded)
@@LeaksHater the new dendro archon says that Tevyat is run in the loop meaning Ashikai previous theory that the god of time is meddling the business proven to be right all along, these time thing around Tevyat already increase all of the theory Ashikai ever mention she points out that some moment could be changed or stay the way it is without changing the future
@@syarifht5929 nowhere is Istaroth or Kusanali related to the theory here. Also "loop" probably means here that everything is cyclical rather than literally time being reset.
have you noticed that most adepti (specifically moon carver, cloud retainer and even yanfei) refer to xiao as the "conqueror of demons" ONLY instead of his name over and over again, could be because xiao's trauma is mostly associated with his name so they avoid using any name completely
they refer to him his title as a form of formality since he also holds a senior position. It also shows the distance between them. Unless they're close enough or unless Xiao says so, his default name is Conqueror of demons
@@ehe5669 well he after all trained Shenhe and possibly Ganyu to how defend themselves, where Cloud Retainer, Moon Carver and Mountain Deer trained booth of them in the magical arts, Xiao taught them to how handle weapons like the spear and bow respectively
@Kiki nah man it is just a supposition, since he is the only adeptus that fights with weapons primarily than magic and Cloud Retainer and the other adepti in Liyue don't look like the warrior type to me
I think this is kind of a translation thing. Conqueror of Demons only represents the first part of the original Chinese title. In Chinese, this name goes 降魔大圣. if anyone has read Journey to the West, you will notice that Monkey King in this novel is also called the Great Sage Equalling Heaven (The sage here means someone of great wisdom or strength, it has no relation to the sages in sumeru), which in Chinese is 齐天大圣 (齐天=Equalling heaven, 大圣=the Great Sage). Therefore, if we translate 降魔大圣 directly into English, it will be The Great Sage Conquering Demons (降魔=Conquering Demons, 大圣=The Great Sage). Therefore, this is actually a very formal and powerful title. hoyoverse might think that if they translate it like this it would be too long, so they cut it short into Conqueror of Demons. Anyway, the adepti refer to Xiao as conqueror of demons mostly because of respect. He might be the only adepti that is still fighting today so of course they respect him. that's also why at the dinner in 3.4, everyone (except for Traveller, Paimon and Venti) called him the conqueror of demons even though most of them don't know much about trauma.
Another point towards Xiao being from Sumeru is that People of Sumeru “Can't dream”. Xiao used to eat people's good dreams and left them with nightmares. Did the precious dendro archon then try to save these people by not letting them dream at all? Is that why sumerians can't dream?
@@horizon146 He ate the dreams, only having nightmares then got passed down to those people's descendants, and then previous Archon started the Akasha system?
What if the Dendro Archon initially wanted to control dreams to protect Sumerians but he became corrupt and Zhongli has to kill her? And to atone for that, Celestia maybe made him sign a contract to withhold that info forever?
"The majority of the English community seems to at least see him as an edgy emo-character, or a tsundere stereotype." Cries for 5000 years at the injustice. So many things lost in the English localization it makes me so upset. I feel for the VAs who get flack for it too, since I know a lot of it was what they were directed to do. Thank you for these theory videos, they're very interesting, and I appreciate the effort you take in researching all the mythology. There was another theoriest that I liked, but they seemed a bit to... western-focused, which means a LOT of the theories felt slightly off or incomplete. I also like that you have your own theories, but don't try to force the evidence to fit them. Your hard work is very appreciated ❤
I'm CRYING because I've been studying Xiao's chronology and lore for MONTHS and when someone on twitter showed me this channel I couldn't believe how similar (practically the same) our theories/reflections are!! So more details for you to chew on! -In one of The Chasm quests, the Sumeru guy told us that The Chasm show signs to have been a forest/have been under the sea long long time ago, and that only through unnatural forces it became the zone we know now. So, being The Chasm Liyue Territory (i suppose) modeled by Morax' hands, it makes sense that long ago part of Sumeru was part of the Dream God's territory. In fact, locating Bosacious quest in The Chasm emphasizes this yaksha-the chasm-sumeru related thing. -Related to this is what Xiao says about Bosacious in The Chasm quest. "You were Morax's first yaksha". So, for me, it made sense that yakshas were adeptus that "became" yaskhas through training (like Pervases tried), and they all "adopted" a new name when becoming a yaksha for "their king". Alatus, Bosacious, Pervases... all Latin names related to their animal form. So maybe that's why I think they don't call Xiao, Xiao? Cause they all call each other by their military rank? -About WHEN Xiao got his new name from Morax: I don't really know about the Dream God slaving Xiao with his true name. ALTHOUGH, Xiao's chronology has always given me headaches until I realized that MAYBE Morax didn't gave him the name Xiao when saving him from the evil lord but LATER! Freed Xiao joined the yaskshas, where they call him General Alatus. No one called him Xiao then.... because (in my theory) Morax gave him this name to protect him from Celestia, 500 years ago, after sealing Azhdaha. (Remember your theory about Menogias having been designed after a figure that fought the Heavens...?) -The lost treasure and Azhdaha. There's this quest about a treasure about an Adeptus whose name was erased from the chest we retrieved from the ruins and it looks purposely scratched. Who would want to erase an adeptus' name from history? Well, we have lore about an Adeptus who was Ascended to Celestia (Guhua) and another about the three adeptus who helped Rex Lapis to contain Azhdaha. One of them is unknown, as their name was scratched. (1000 years ago). Taking Celestia as the bad guys, maybe they got their eye on Xiao, the perfect martyr, and Morax changed his name and all the records about him in order to prevent his Ascension? "Alatus" was never mentioned again, only Xiao. // Or maybe the Geo yaksha was lost here? -Fischl dragon: having the dragon in her play sidequest saying that eating dreams was eating the people's ambitions, I thought that maybe Xiao was forced to eat "Visions"/elementary power... That would be a valuable soldier, if he can turn every enemy into a lost soul like it happened in Inazuma. -Chronology: I also thought the Dream God was the Sea God that destroyed Liyue+provoked Ghizhong's death. Morax created the jade spear to kill him, saved Xiao from him and then gave Xiao the jade spear as a symbol of freedom (when Morax had to create another spear in order to take down Osial. Xiao was already under Morax' command when facing Osial for the first time, 2000 years ago). So, again, being The Chasm originally underwater, and "related" to the yaskhas, I thought The Chasm may had been this Sea/Dream God territory. But being so close to Sumeru, maybe this Sea God was indeed /from/ Sumeru. SORRY FOR THE LONG TEXT I JUST LOVE DISCUSSING XIAO'S AND ZHONGLI'S LORE. PS: it has always baffled me how all adeptus wore Liyue's colours but Xiao wore teal, white and lilac... colours of forests and flowers. (Not only referring to his anemo symbolism, the teal one)
as I can see it "Adepti" is just the local name for the deities that live in liyue are going by. ln inazuma there equivalent are the "Yokai" so for xiao being originally from sumeru is very passable.
@@mariapazgonzalezlesme 仙人 translated is "divine human" actually, at least from my own knowledge. ofc, i cant just assume you don't know the language yourself or if youre specifically referring to the title of 仙人 at all in the first place so correct me if im wrong
its a little strange because im not sure inazuma mentions the yokai by such a name, i know that by japanese mythos they are but by genshin lore its not explicitly said
@@alexblack4048 like I said it's my opinion I could be wrong. But just like how it is in the real world God and deities have different names based on what part of the world you are in and the supernatural beings of inazuma are the yokai. So it's my conclusion that "Adepti" and "Yokai" are the same thing the only different is that one region based on china and the other one of japan.
“This is batshit if it actually works. There’s a 90% chance I might be wrong. But I play Gacha games! And 10% sounds pretty spicy.” Ashikai gambling addiction confirmed.
Honestly, I do think that Menogias=Capitano theory has some decent legs to stand on. First, I need to mention that not all harbingers seems to have connections to the cataclysm. We don’t know much, but Pantalone probably has nothing to do with cataclysm and is, overall, just a regular dude. As far as we know, Dottore doesn’t have anything to do with the cataclysm either. Second, back to Dottore - hey, we have a mad scientist that creates copies of himself, who says that he can’t reanimate a corpse of a yaksha. AND, hear me out, he considered heretic, while Menogias references Son Wukon - which would be an interesting inversion of the Journey to the West story where Wukon was released by/to accompany A PRIEST. WILD THEORIES LETS GO
we'll have to wait around a year or two to confirm it (if I were to guess). If we see Capitano with a dendro vison the chances will jump up. I still love this theory, even with the low chances of it being true.
@@uttopielec i guess so. Though, even if geo yaksha and Capitano are the same being, if he was resurrected - reassembled even - it would kind of make sense if his constellation and vision changed, reflecting him getting reborn with new fate and ambition, him no longer being Menogias in the eyes of the world itself.
Also why is there no confirmed harbinger from Liyue yet? We have Signora from Mondstadt, Scaramouche from Inazuma, and though we haven’t been there yet we know childe is from sneznaya. Also correct me if I’m wrong but I think we already know Dottore is from sumeru since he did experiments on children there. Even khaenriah has pierro. Where is the Liyue rep? Since everywhere else has one it’s illogical to assume it just won’t have any. We’ve had a lot of events and story quests centered there, so it doesn’t make sense that we haven’t at least heard of them yet. Unless we already have been told about them, and hoyoverse is just waiting a couple years for a dramatic reveal. Hmm… Food for thought.
@@bearerofthecurse69, I personally think that Pantalone comes from Liyue. Well... since he's so obsessed with money in which he was questioning gods having the power of wealth even when they don't really need it. And that kind of thought must have come from the one closest to him, Morax the God of Wealth.
What's really sad is that we won't be able to further interact with the Yakshas. I think that Bosacious would have been such a funny and joyous character, a little bit like Itto. Full of himself but in a good and fun way, always joking and playing tricks on people just to make them smile. You know, a "big brother".
I know this is a year later, but this reminds me of how the people with him parallel the Yaksha's as well, say, itto as the geo one. They all felt so random at the start but make so much sense?
@Cloverstripe I always thought that genshin would find a way for the other yakshas to be playable. But it wouldn't make sense for the story and it would be very tough to implement them in the game story even if they were somehow resurrected. Because they would have to release them as 5 stars and with the increasing number of 5 stars in the game(more than 4 stars) it would be very problematic.
Fischl's mirage island theaters featured a dragon eating tasty dreams as its main villain and ate only good dreams. Bad, empty, and shallow dreams were a no-go... seems a little too coincidental to me if Xiao's orders were to eat good dreams. But that's just me.
most of these mythology references were from Hinduism and Buddhism, so I wouldn't be shocked if Xiao has sumeru origins, since Hinduism and Buddhism both originated from India, which is one of the references for sumeru- a good theory, i approve!
The story of Xiao's master taking control of him by using his "true name" might also be another tie to Sumeru. The concept of a "true name" or something along those lines actually comes from Egyptian mythology. There's a few different interpretations on what it means to know a god's "true name." Half the explanations I hear say that knowing a god's true name and using it will give you their powers. I actually heard of this one in a myth about Ra as to heal himself, he had to give his true name to another god in order to heal him and upon using Ra's true name, that god then was able to use Ra's powers to rule the world, but they apparently were very well liked and good at it. That interpretation is interesting because if that's true in Xiao's case, then that means that the power Xiao holds now, how powerful he is, isn't his true power. Xiao himself could've had a different purpose at one point and upon becoming a slave to his master, those powers were rather locked away like Lumine/Aether's or given up to his master for his master's own benefit. His powers might even be originally his master's and they were swapped, his master getting Xiao's original, maybe even more powerful powers, while Xiao got . . . depression. The other half of the stories seem a little bit more likely for Xiao's case, in which knowing someone's true name makes them your own living puppet. (Considering Genshin's themes of artificial life and puppets, I wouldn't be surprised.) I read a series as a kid based in Egyptian mythology that used this version and one character who knew another character's true name would sometimes use that power to make him do goofy things like slap himself in the face at a random, inappropriate time. If this is Xiao's case, then that's why he was never able to escape and why he was only able to go free after Morax killed him, because his connection to his master because he knew his name was like a shackle and chains connecting him to the wall, his name being the shackle and his former master being the chains. Once Morax cut the chain, Xiao was a free Yaksha. Like cutting a marionette's strings and the marionette being a real, living thing. So, yeah, more to add to your theory that Xiao's from Sumeru. I support it 110%.
To add on to your Ra myth reference, the goddess Isis was the one to get his true name. She did this because she wanted her husband Osiris on the throne. So she made a magic snake out of Ra’s spit, had it poison him, and used to to get his true name and force him to step down.
WAIT YOU'RE SO RIGHT ACTUALLY Because now, when Sumeru is out, and after Lilupar quest we can see Xiao and genie links. Because it was said, how a person becomes genie's master after finding out it's true name, and how the only way to break this contract is to kill the person. Which basically happened to Xiao's old master. Also, now we can see the dream connection clearer because dreams hold wisdom of people and have this "energy" in them (sorry, don't remember what energy is it, i just remember it's needed for something) and maybe Xiao's master was harvesting this energy that way, with Xiao.
37:04 - 37:30 Ngl, this part made me tear up. :') When it comes to characters who went through sm despair and loss to the point where they lose their will to live, I become emotionally attached. In Xiao's case, his atk animations were the reason I started to like him in the first place. However, learning about him as a character has led to him having a special place in my heart. I wish the people who only see him as an "edgy lord" to take the extra mile to understand him properly. It saddens me to see them reduce him to "emo and edgy lord" when he's much more than that.
I'd say even if xaio was correctly depicted in localization he would still be treated in that discretion because we like to place characters into the closest trope we are familiar with. I mean , ayaka is clearly independent, kind of isolated but is serious when she needs to be. But we have decided to make her extremely dependent on the traveler OR a psychopath
that was my realization from the quest as well. the underlying themes of wills and xiao slow understanding what wills really are and what it takes to be the one holding it. He was never hopeful of a life beyond the endless war, and thus wasn't able to think of a future for himself, unlike the others who yearned to experience mundane lives despite knowing they'll never fulfill such wish. I interpreted his last lines in the quest thus "this war of ours MIGHT never end, but i, with a tainted heart, will be carrying their hearts with me, to bring them to a place beyond the battlefield. Heroes shall look out for each other (Could be pertaining to traveler but is also applicable for his late comrades in this context). Xiao learns to give more value to his life as he gains a concrete duty of holding to their unfulfilled wishes
Shoutouts to Ashikai being the only youtuber I trust to talk about Xiao and his characterization. The video was delightful and I honestly can't wait to see what they do with Capitano. If he really does turn out to be Menogias, I can only imagine how Xiao is gonna react :(
ashikai‘s yaksha video is like kfc gliders, somewhat of a meme but it finally came LOL excited to watch this! edit: just finished watching, great video as always! there is one thing I noticed tho and it’s is in 1.3 story quest, it was the geo yaksha that dealt the final blow to the hydro yaksha, but in the 2.7 archon quest, it was the other way around. Idk if it means something but the pyro yaksha had the same thing in both cutscenes, screaming in pain, but in a different camera angle. With how deliberate hoyo is with small details, I wonder if it is sus or not.
The story if I remember correctly went like this; The Hydro Yaksha, in a descent into madness, struck the Geo Yaksha's heart, and the Geo Yaksha dealt the final blow to the Hydro Yaksha in retaliation, then bled out slowly right next to her, til they both died.
This is really interesting with the parallels of the group in the chasm to the Yakshas. Mainly how Yelan and Itto seemed to be pretty at each other's throats.
actually I have a theory about this... Since Ashikai told us that the reference of Menogias is "Mythical Zoan Saru-saru no Mi : Model Sun Wu Kong" :v It became so possible to think that he still alive and became "capitano"... In legend, one of Sun Wu Kong's abilities is to "replicate" or let's call it "cloning himself". By this ability it self, we can assume that Menogias Death became so sus, since in the Cutscene where the Hydro Yaksha stabs Menogias with her claws depicts the death of Menogias, then what about the death of the hydro yaksha herself? who "killed" her if it was the Hydro Yaksha who won? Well my theory is, the one who fought the Hydro Yaksha was Menogias's Clone, and right now he still alive and became the Harbinger with "black hair" :v Well its just a Theory afterall, if that's became true, then Xiao's Arc still hasn't ended in 2.7, and he'll likely return when Capitano showing his face to Travelers or Xiao... Well, to be honest, Capitano and Menogias' situation here reminds me about the situation of Obito Uchiha and Tobi (Fake Madara with Swirling Mask) in Naruto Shippuden...
I think it it was because originally we were hearing it from a book that talked about the yakshas which was later then said by xiao was a piece of “literature fan-fiction” and fast forward to the current flashback it’s being shown to us by bosacious who saw everything go down directly or maybe I’m just looking to much into it idk (｀・∀・´)
Xiao is such an amazing character. He's been through so much and you can really see the toll it's taken on him but I feel like through all the quests he's been in you can also see his growth.
Actually, what if the Fatui put Menogius’ ley line memories into the suit of armour? It’s more likely than you think, because Pierro might have wanted the buffest of buff members.
with xiao’s and his master’s association with dreams, and the information of people in sumeru being unable to dream, i am frothing at the mouth for more information about him and his master. i started playing genshin because i thought xiao was pretty and was interested in what a creator was doing in the fandom. and here i am. always excited for more yaksha content, i can listen to ash talk about them for hours. i want to learn of their origins as well. and how they ended up with morax and as yakshas.
I’ve been looking forward to this video since we finished the Chasm storylines. Xiao has a beautiful, tragic story that actually revolves around building healthy relationships and self worth. Forget lore, it’s a wonderful fairytale that tugs at the heart all on its own. I really hope Xiao isn’t the only yaksha still alive, and I’ll leave it at that.
I am constantly blown away by all of the mythological references found in Genshin, and how you and the other lore theorists can tie them all together, I can imagine the developers watching these with a big grin. Even if these connections won't be "confirmed" in game it's very satisfying when it all clicks for head cannon. Also you have convinced me that Capitano is the geo yaksha, even just the hair and design similarities, hiding his face definitely seems suspicious.
I took that scene with Morax and Xiao at face value, just as a request for permission and not much more to it other than some underlying concern that it would be dangerous till I watched this- and boy am I glad I did. The difference is subtle, but I’m so happy to hear that Zhongli doesn’t completely suck as a quasi-father figure, and that they’ve been interacting more off screen.
HOLY CRAP WE MIGHT SEE THE MONKEY KING! That’s like the strongest character in Chinese mythology. If Hoyoverse makes a Sun Wukong equivalent in Genshin then they will be OP!
I will never get over the mischaracterization Xiao gets in the community. So many times it's shown why he acts certain ways or says things yet everyone just ignores it. The same can go for most of the lore with the yaksha so I'm very happy you made a video on this 🥲
This is a great video, especially with the analysis with Xiao! Definitely one of the most tragic characters in the game, and even moreso vilified and misunderstood. The devs made a big post around a year or so ago on his character design and development, and emphasized specific traits that most players won’t see at first glance (especially in English). He’s really a character that you have to dig deep into lore and analysis to fully understand why he is the way he is. It hurts when people call him emo and edgy since that is not what his character is. Great video! Looking forward to the next one! ;) (Also still fully believing Capitano is either The Blood-Stained Knight or Imunlaukr.)
Also wanna point out how u mentioned Xiao's connection to Sumeru and i think further the proof would be his constellations having mentions of Eon which is Time ...in the artifact section too the Sands is called 'the sands of Eon' .. and.. the sands in sumeru with the hourglass shaped mountain... Xiao is somehow connected and doesn't feel like a coincidence. Amazing video as ever. Watching ur videos give me motivation to keep playing this game eventho there's no content. Just makes me connected to the game even more!! :)
Oh my god.. I LOVED this video! As a Xiao main and stan, this absolutely warmed my heart and you have such a good point about the relation that he has with Zhongli, especially during the Perilous Trail quest! I'm glad that I wasn't the only one who felt like his constellations we're hints of him growing as a character, moreso as we saw him recently. Thanks so much for making this vid, your videos remind me how much I love this game and its lore 🤍🍃
I'm very excited for the origin of animal people, like Gorou or Diona, if you ever decide to explore it. This part of Genshin lore fascinates me the most. I wish we could see a village of animal people somewhere, or just more generic NPCs walking around in cities with cute tails and ears ^^ Thank you for this wonderful video
Explaining the actual meaning of the last scene of the story quest just bring so many emotions. I love your theory and analysis videos because they are accurate, researched and based. They're enjoyable and often not that far off from what comes next in the game. :D
@@Mai-df8sv nothing stops them from playable if Hoyo will continue all that ley line time travel stuff they are doing. We currently have event where we can see Diluc from the past and fight monsters that were there who knows how many years ago. In Raiden's second story quest we participated in planting of sakura tree that appeared in reality 500 years ago. If Hoyo really want to make them playable they actually can. All they need to do is create a quest where we will witness and interact ourselves with them in the past due to some ley line disorder (it won't be hard to implement if that tree from Collei dream is connected to ley lines)
@@AFKay-sv1dl still i hope thats not case for our xiao here, if the yakshas were to bring back from the dead/time travel shenanigans then Xiao's character development will be seen as worthless. Also, character design play a role on whether a character can be playable or not like for example: The electro and hydro yaksha design is obviously was not meant to playable (cue signora cameo)
@@Mai-df8sv I didn't meant to say that Hoyo can bring them back to life. If we can interact with them enough in some weird sub-space and get to know them closer they can be playable without the need to bring them back to current time line Playable characters aren't that cannon anyway, especially when you could play as Tartaglia at the same time when he was manipulating you to get the gnosis (even fight Tartaglia with Tartaglia), and by the end of the quest we had neutral relationship at most. It's not like they travel with us, so what's the difference?
Speaking of birds, can someone explain to me why Diluc is associated with THREE different kinds of birds?! As a Diluc fan since day 1 and lore enthusiast, it enrages me. 1. Eagle - symbol of his family, also symbol of Vanessa, one of the four winds. Eagle statues are all around his house. The animal fits the theme of anemo, plus the nation founded by hunters whose primary weapons were bows. The way he portrays himself in front of others goes well with the characteristics of an eagle as well. 2. Owl - his constellation (usually shows one's theme). Besides owls also being great hunters, how he's the dark NIGHT hero and how he's in fact very quiet, humble and not intimidating once you get to know him, I got nothing. 3. Phoenix - his goddamn burst, which is so on the nose, bombastic and simplistic compared to the rest, my mind pretends it's just an eagle made out of fire. Phoenixes here refer to rebirth, rising from the ashes (Diluc standing up for Mondstadt again after being disgusted by in the knights), flames (duh), dawn (name of his burst, again new hope). Yes, it's the most mystical and grandiose of the 3 birds, so it makes sense to be reserve for a burst, but why his?! Pick one animal to describe you, because it's getting crowded and each one loses its significance!
@ashikai Here's something related to adeptai and humans that i found interesting: The quote from genshin's lead character designer: "On the Continent of Teyvat, humanity shoulders a responsibility that is more noble than the Immortal ways upheld by the Adeptai. As such, in order to differentiate human's uniqueness from the rest of the races, only non-human creatures are referred to as Adeptai in Liyue." (Suggesting humans are called something else when reaching an immortal/ascended form - Perhaps he's referring to Allogenes aka Genshins?) Source: CN Developer diary web page on the design of Xiao.
I can't even put to words what I feel about that video about the Yakshas and Xiao. All you said was something I thought myself and wondered if there was also a possibility for Xiao to endure his karmic debt better due to his past.... That Chasm archon quest was one of the Best so far. I've been in love with Zhongli/Xiao ever since I arrived in Liyue. When they had their rerun I couldn't chose so I took both of them home haha. Thanks for the video.
Finally an in depth Xiao video 😭I love this so much, hes my favorite character and I’m obsessed with his story. I’m also so glad that someone else thinks he could be from Sumeru/somewhere near Sumeru, and I hope he gets more story content after Sumeru is released.
Assuming that Menogias is a reference to Son vo kong, Sson vo kong was sealed under a rock while Menogias died fighting the hydro Yaksha. This is confirmed in the Bosiecious story cutscene where we see him getting stabbed / slashed by the hydro Yaksha as he falls. Also Xiao himself says that he knows the fate of all the fallen Yakshas except Bosiecious ( before the interlude). Tho this theory would be really cool, it won't happen unless the Fatui or Menogias himself were able to trick Xiao and Morax. Although now that i think about it there's a possibility, maybe when Menogias died he left behind a fragment (like Bosiecious that Xiao wanted to bring with him) or a curse ( i mean killed by a close ally does sound like a peaceful death) and Capitano might be that fragment/ curse given a physical forn. We've seen something like this happen in the story so i wouldn't be surprised if it's the case. That's a really interesting connection brought up of dreams. Xiao's former master forced Xiao to eat dreams, while the first Dendro Archon Rukshadevata made it so that his people cannot dream and then we have Kusanali who can give dreams of string willed people a physical form. The Mount Sumeru from the myths I've read is considered to be the Center of any and all physical, metaphysical ( might be referring to something like the dream troller art ) and spiritual universes. I'm guessing Xiao's former master was targeting Sumeru as it seems kinda drastic for the 1st Dendro Archon to stop people from dreaming completely, but if this is the case then how and why did Morax went and killed Xiao's master. Not to mention the Adepti and Morax can invade people's dreams and bring people out of dreams as a soul kinda thing. Unless Morax and Rukshadevata had some ties with each other, it's a stretch but possible.
Morax sniped the evil god from afar with a bow (primordial vista), probably since the evil god specialized in mind control. She forced xiao to eat the dreams so she could get drunk on "pure hatred and revulsion" that comes after.
I’m pretty sure Kusanali wasn’t the one who gave the mirages a physical form? That was just the fatui machine. But the dialogue at the end of the summertime odyssey did say somethings about “a power that has something to do with me” so she maybe still has dream related powers.
If Menogias really is based on Son wukong then deceiving people is something he is an absolute master at. Son Wukong had the abiltity to create clones of himself, it is one of his most famous abilties among his 72. This ability could've easily decieved Xiao.
If your Capitano's theory turns out to be true... you're really our Lore Archon, Ash! You know, now, things fit.. especially for the timeline as you said. Man... What's the ratio between you hoping your theory comes true and not at all as you wanting them to surprise you as always?
Hmmm 20 true, 80 surprise. The truth is as high as it is because I think it would make for an amazing story between morax and menogias (and xiao), and 80 surprise cuz surprises are excellent and we still don't have a harbinger from natlan.
I love Liyue, the Yakshas and Morax. They're the reason I first played Genshin too. When I saw a video of the Yakshas trailer. Liyue is a place that keeps on giving us lore and I'm honestly here for it. I was a bit disappointed by Inazuma lorewise, but then the Chasm came out and I'm back to my Genshin ways and have not stopped since. Thanks Ashikai!! I just love all things Liyue. Best map, i swear. Best characters imho.
I think the Theory of the Yaksha Being Capitano is HIGHLY plausible because of the constellation of the three nails. A.) as you have mentioned before, those are symbols of suffering. Yaksha, suffering… B.) The more important clue to me is that we have seen three nails crossed together IN THE GAME. At the Bottom of I believe Dunyu Lake, there is a small pool with three crossed nails in the water. And that area is covered with Yaksha statues. It seems a little coincidental for one of the constellations of the Harbringers to be present at a sight related to Yakshas. Another point to add to this theory is that even when a Yaksha dies, that doesn’t mean it can’t come back in one form or another, if you look at Pervases. He was dead, yet we met his physical form due to him using a special ritual. So it follows that there might be rituals that could theoretically resurrect a Yaksha. Plus, we’ve seen how Ley Lines can manifest physical memories, so the possibility of such a ritual would line up with other points of in game lore
8:46 I don't think the Latinized primary names aren't really intended to mean anything (though the Menoetius connection is interesting!), they're mostly just Latinizations of the Chinese names like how "Confucius" is a transliteration of Kong Fuzi. The military titles do have meanings, like General Kapisas referencing Hanuman, though Chizapus (for Bonanus) sounds like gibberish to me lol
Even though greek mythology is far from Sumeru region and myth palate, Ocypete from Greek is a harpy that means 'Swift Wing'. The job of the harpies were also to carry punishment for crimes. Eating people's good dream is a punishment enough imo. This of the Got me thinking, why there are only 7 nations in Teyvat? Maybe there were more nations but most of their gods were killed so their people got absorbed into the 7 nations (the culture of the original archons). For example, Havria is Huixtocihuatl, an Aztec god of salt and salt water. Her region can be of aztec culture, but reduced and her people absorbed to liyue and mondstadt. In the same manner, maybe Garuda/Ocypete/Xiao were once an adeptus/demigod from this greek culture that was destroyed because Morax and god of wood take their region and devide is to liyue and sumeru.
We got the Bosacius quest with Inazuma (both electro), maybe we'll get more story about the other yaksha's when Fontaine, Natlan, and if your theory about Capitano is correct, Snezhnaya come out. But I feel like your theories are so good and well-thought that if it ends up being something different, it's gonna be disappointing lol
I forgot this was suppose to come out before the Fatui lmfao. Now Sumeru is around the corner I would love to hear a video about what you expect from Sumeru.
I was not expecting the "chonky Borb" bit at 22:38 in such a serious video (which is excellent as always). Anyway I was just researching Xiao inspiration stuff and it's nice to have it all consolidated in one very informative video. There is an unreleased bow in the jade series that when you read it's lore feels like it's Xiao lore. Given this and what we know I also think Xiao isn't from Liyue, possibly from an area near Qingxu pool. Whatever is to come I feel like after the last 2 patches we're going to get more Xiao and Kazuha lore as we progress through Sumeru.
omg omg, finally... after all this time, we get a yaksha analysis! i can't tell you how much joy i am feeling, you must be too. ty so much for your hard work. :)
There is an interesting detail In the first ever Yaksha animation, another yaksha kills Menogias But in the final cutscene of the Chasm archon quest, it is shown that Menogias kills the other yaksha
I love this! I’ve been waiting on it for a while now since you’ve been teasing this in forever. And you delivered so hard. 💗 Xiao also holds a special place in my heart as he’s technically the first person I ever saved for in this game back in 1.3, so this video was a treat.
I honestly really wanted in 1.3 like I was ready to spend money for him only for him to be gone faster then I could pull out my wallet haha good thing he came in 2,4 and I finally got him and his c1
@@2triedforthis830 Congrats on getting him and sticking to your guns! People generally don’t use him anymore for meta nowadays, and that genuinely makes me sad since Xiao was essentially shunned from the beginning with the lack of supports and initial lack of specific artifact set for him. I still use him in the Abyss though and as my first actual dps in this game, he still carries my ass and even got me to 36 star the last cycle. I hope you enjoy his gameplay as much as us old Xiao havers! 💗
@@yesensei he actually made me do abyss more and like made me get 36 stars he’s amazing and I love him without him I wouldn’t be playing this game Xiao solos and is the best
thank you, been waiting for this! Xiao lore is so interesting i really hope they will go more in depth with his character, and that people will finally be willing to understand him. mihoyo did him so dirty in en it's ridiculous, i will never understand why they did that to him.
about your theory of menogias being capitano, it's really interesting but I wonder why he would join the fatui🤔 maybe because of that same "anger"... oh yeah!I remembered something in Egyptian mythology about someone's true name being part of the soul
As someone with depression and going into a hard time with traumas at a young age, Xiao means so much for me. Since the very beginning he is my main in genshin and I can’t get enough of seeing him and the process of him seeing himself as a worthy life. I‘m going through the same process, so he means a lot for me. Thank you for this video! I wanted to learn more a out him and this helped me to understand ^^
This might mean nothing, but in the novel 'Journey to the West', one of the antagonists is the Golden Winged Great Peng. So there's one more connection between Xiao and Menogias
Great work! really like your wild theories. The lore of Yakshas is kinda obscure even for Chinese players. I can't imagine how much time you had spent to fight with all those strange terms and piece all information together. However, there are still a few mistakes, mostly due to translation mistakes. The Chinese name of Bonanus 伐难（Fa Nan）doesn't mean "difficult to cut" but "conquering disaster". The Fa used here is a verb meaning "Conquering", and 难（Nan, 4th tone not 2nd tone）is "disaster" (Yeah, it's one of the tricky polyphonic Chinese words, and only in 2nd tone, it means "difficult"). As for her General name, actually……we Chinese players also don't have a clear idea why she is called 螺卷大将 (General Snail Spiral). My best guess is that she is referring to Santhila from the twelve Heavenly Generals (the twelve guardian yakshas in Chinese Buddhism) who is said to be a woman/goddess with a snail shell-like bun (another explaination is that she holds a sea snail catalyst when she appears). However, as you said, the other four Yakshas are referring to four different mysterious animals, and I'm not sure why she doesn't follow this pattern. Also, though many materials would tell you that Mind-Monkey is Sun Woo Kong, '心猿' (Mind-monkey) is actually a much older term in Buddhism than Journey to the West. its original meaning is 'unquiet mind (a mind like a restless monkey)'. So, sorrry , your Menogias-Capitano theory now only has 1% chance to be true. 😁 I also have a feeling that Xiao has some thing to do with Sumeru. The Golden Peng plays a very important role in Hinduism and Buddhism, and the dream elements also add some suspicious connections.
BTW, do you have a discord or something? Judging from some of your videos, I guess you are suffering with finding correct Chinese translations and Chinese legends which, as a Chinese, I might offer some help.
I appreciate the correction but I have to disagree on the Sun wukong. He is distinctly referenced by name in the developer insights article as well as the novel journey to the West so it's pretty explicit that they are referencing this novel and not the original roots of the name. I do have a discord but right now it's for members only because I'm not prepared to make it a public one. That requires staff.
Oh my goodness this is an amazing video!! I've been looking forward to it from all your mental breakdowns on twitter, which is a whole mood for any sort of creative outlet. I'm honestly floored that you can even dig up all this information. You must be amazing at any and all trivia games (that being said I do research a lot of random things but forget it near immediately). Your theories are so mind blowing and insightful. I wish I could say more, but right now I'm only capable of word vomiting
I always thought for a time that Xiao was only a tsundere for the reasons that he was scared of hurting others and that he doesn't deserve companionship. Though there's just also the fact he just isn't plain sure how to interact socially since he's pushed himself away from others, thus he makes himself appear aloof and distant. In truth, although serious and distant, he's just awkward and has people's safety in mind and he'd feel guilty and responsible if anyone got hurt because of him. In his mindset anyway. That's kind what survivors guilt does to people. They put the blame on themselves even though they in truth were the victim. Of course as we progress we can see Xiao opening up to others, especially the traveler. He's started to make exceptions to clear his built walls for others, willing to put himself in situations he'd rather avoid, like simply walking in public. And now of course, he's willing to indulge in the idea of making more friends because there are people who can handle his Karmic debt, like those with visions or of greater power like the traveler. Xiao is a complex character. He's not some edgy tsundere for the sake of it. The way he acts is something he can't help because it's really all he's known. It what's he's beaten into himself time and time again, thus his lack of self worth. At heart he's kind and prefers putting the lives of others above his own despite of himself.
Watching your theory videos is always a pleasure. Not just for the information and lore than I may have missed in game, but because your delivery of said info and lore is so informal, chill and relaxing. It is readily apparent that they are a labor of love and something you are genuinely interested in. Keep up the great work, and thank you for all your time and effort!
The more I learn about xiao the more I understand why he’s my favourite and why I main him his character is so amazingly well thought of and his backstory is so interesting
I was so excited for your yaksha video to come out and wasn't disappointed with the result!! You always present information so clearly and unravel your thoughts like they're a big story in and of themselves. This video in particular helped me understand the nuances of Xiao's arc and just AGH made me like his character even more (and Morax too!!). Hoyo has such good character stories to tell but I dont always feel like they're executed in full detail so I miss a lot... I feel lucky to have a player like you dig in and share it all with us! Thanks for your hard work :)
First of all, it somehow just feels right hearing your lessons about the Yaksha from Yanfei, lol. Second, hearing your theories about the overall plot and your knowledge of the real world influences to the mythos just solidifies my belief that you are my go-to source for the LOREEEE! Keep up the great work, Ash! EDIT: Also forgot to mention that for 13:35, Xiao himself brings up more evidence for Bonanus being the one to find the solution difficult to solve, as he even quotes Bonanus’ observation that “it is rare for a Yaksha to find repose for their soul.”
Thank you so much for translating so much of the nuance of Xiao that is lost through translation and to the english-using playerbase. The misunderstanding of Xiao is the most prominent (& most personal) flaw in the english localization of Genshin. I'm 1st generation asian diaapora: I grew up knowing certain values and concepts but without any ability to articulate them to either language (not knowing enough chinese & the concepts not really existing in english). When I saw Xiao's design, played the Liyue archon & story quests, experienced my first Lantern Rite, then played Perilous Trails... I understood the kind of character Xiao was, from a deep sense of cultural recognition. The profound sense of loss, the intangibility of one's struggles, the isolation of being the last/singular instance of your kind... these are themes that are not only deeply established in chinese storytelling but in the wider experience of being chinese diaspora. now, the latter is unintentional (Genshin is made in mainland china, after all) but it IS notable because of how impactful Genshin has been for players who are diaspora: the only prior instances of huge, western mainstream occurence of Chinese culture have been kungfu flicks and The Untamed. The Avatar cartoons & Kungfu Panda films ALSO hit asian diaspora hard but neither animation series was actually made by & in chinese: Genshin is. so. the misunderstandings held about Xiao always feel personal, especially with COVID and its inciting a fresh source for east-asian directed racism. uh. i was here for lore reasons and got feels. yay? but, mostly, thanks.
The fact that we might see more of xiao because he might be related to sumeru makes me even more interested and it appears that xiao is related to lot of important things
I love your theories and I LOVE reading this comment section for details that bolster or hamper a theory. It's been a long time since I've been into a series with such rich, complex, and mysterious worldbuilding. Also watching this video and reading the comments is a funny coincidence for me bc I'm working on a story (that got out of hand lol whoops) where a couple of the "contract rules" between a summoner and their demon is not to give the demon a name, and give the demon your true name to be addressed by, for fear of the demon taking advantage of the summoner with their use. I thought it was just a cool concept (mainly in vague reference to Fae myths) but I didn't realize it had more basis in other world mythologies and religions, like in Xiao's case. Heck, maybe Xiao's backstory was an influence I didn't even think about! I'll have to look into it more to strengthen it as a plot point :P
I'm not certain if anyone's pointed it out already, however, some Genshin fans noticed that during the Perilous Trail Quest, each of the party aside from the Traveler corresponds to one of the four other Yakshas. Yelan corresponds to Bonanus. Shinobu corresponds to Bosacius. Yanfei corresponds to Indarius. And Itto corresponds to Menogias.
I'm so happy there's a video related to xiao explaining his character, genshin fans meme him too much and you can't put all the blame on voice acting. really bizarre coincidence or maybe I've heard it before but the theory of him being from sumeru has been in the back of my mind for a while. something about his design never felt very connected to liyue. weirdly enough tighnari color palette gave me vibes of a modernized softer xiao. does that make any sense, probably not 😭
I dont think xiao es misunderstood at all.. majority of us just meme a lot with the characters in general (like zhongli being poor, when in reality he doesn't care about the cost of things even if they are expensive, he just forgets his wallet a lot, but is funny to picture him as a beggar) and some take those memes as the actual characters unfortunately
Yea but like majority of people actually thinks xiaos a edagy person and doesn’t like people which isn’t true at all, that’s why he’s very misunderstood. Also people actually thing zhongli is broke haha some people just look at the surface for characters and the memes also play apart of mischaracterization
Xiao childe diluc and kaeya are the ones that suffer the most from the meme culture getting normalized. incredible characters with the most interesting backstories. all lost in the fandom. the curse of genshin getting too big
Of course there will always be people that don't understand and takes things seriously, and those are usually in twitter... but the majority of us are just memeing.. like every time someone takes something to much serious we collectibly tell them is just a meme and to go read the characters history for real depictions... But I would agree in the case of scaramuche for example or characters like him, bc his back story is behind an artifact set that people usually dont read... so a lot of people created a headcannon throughout memes and believe it like it is reality...
menogias, is a reference to wukong who fought against the heavens, so if menogias is capitano warring against celestia who would be considered the heavens that would be cool.
Wow this was a massive work from you. Thank you for that and I´m glad we share the same thoughts about Xiao. Most people seem to put characters into a label and not look deeply into what makes them unique.
29:52 "they might still have the same attributes" fast forward to "Kirara meets Diona" and "Xiao talks to Chongyun about Diona's Callirhoe curse of sweet mix"
You mentioning the kalpas/eons name in Xiao's constellations reminded me of Zaura's thread on Twitter, explaining the meaning behind Teyvat's chapter III "虛空劫灰往世書/The truth amongst the pages of Puranas", and giving new ways to interpret it by the original Chinese text. It was proposed two different translations, based on how you can read certain Chinese characters. "The Puranas and the False Kalpa of Emptiness", with 空劫 meaning Kalpa of Emptiness while 劫 meaning Kalpas. The other proposed translation is "The Puranas and the Akashic Kalpa", with 虛空 meaning Akashic. Xiao's second constellation makes use of the two terms. It's translated as 空劫·虛空華開敷變/Annihilation Eon: Blossom of Kaleidos/Kalpa of Nothingness: Changes of Flower Blooming in Void (the latter is a literal-meaning translation from the wiki page). Here we see 空劫 being used as the Chinese characters for Annihilation Eon/Kalpa of Nothingness, and the second part uses 虛空 to mean Void (another form of interpreting the Akashic Records as a compendium of thoughts/events in a non-physical/astral plane). Anyway, this could be seen as a stretch/reach to imply/strengthen a possible Sumeru reference. Or it's just wishful thinking. Anyway. Amazing video as always
God you had me in the first half, I really though for a split second that sharks were sacrificing themselves to protect us from something from deep within the ocean
great video! i would def love it if the sumeru-xiao theory is real. And while looking at the fate of a char from their constelation, maybe that is true for others as well? for one, childe is kinda sus if he is in c1 or c2 at present and maybe in the future he will have some kinda war with the abyss (c3 c4 -abyssal mayhem)....but if so c6(annihilation) is the greatest red flag xD.... From other ones it fits if zhongli is maybe somewhere past his c3( jade - shimmering through darkness) since the it reminds me of the quote A star appears within the wild... a sun ascends as bright as... jade. huh wearing the tinfoil hat is fun indeed XD
As someone that has being doing chinese zodiac illustrations the past 6 months... The rooster can be any bird.. sometimes is depicted as a fenix like bird not necessarily a rooster
@@Ashikai uff... I dont remember where I read it... I've translated a lot of korean sources throughout these past 6 months, bc the english and spanish ones where to "fortune telling" like and I wanted more mythological and historical references for my illustrations... I now I was reading about depictions of the rooster in different cultures throughout Asia and some have discrepancies between them, one of those being the rooster and it had a pretty valid reason why you can depict it as any bird(something about the origin of the name I think)... including as a Feng Huang.. (although rooster is pretty much the standard now) I would try to search in my bookmarks if I saved the pages that spoke about that and link them to you I did a rough translation so maybe I misunderstood something...
Aaaaaa you’re my favorite and the only channel I watch when it comes to genshin theories! I appreciate the effort and time you put into your work! 💖💖💖🥺👉🏼👈🏼
Usually we smoke a little dendro to understand the trips of all the theories. But it seems this time we need to eat a diversity of elemental mushrooms to grasp the deepest meanings of things.
If all Harbringer being ranked with strenght, with Childe saying he is a great fighter. Capitano, being the second Harbriger, could line up because he is a Yaksha. Yes, im wearing a tinfoil hat too
Just in case you want to consider this. Garuda being associated with the wind is also associated with the being fast or swift. I know that Genshin tends to change names to their own version, but Garuda could be one variation. And Garuda has two other names it's known for. Those being Tarkshya and Vainateya. It's also possible he has one of those names or a look alike of one of those.
I will always appreciate genshin lore TH-cam channels cause you guys bring depth to the game that hoyo could never 😍👌🏼 I’ve been cut off lore stuff for a while and now I’m trying to come back to it
![[3.0] Khaenri'ah Did Nothing Wrong - A Genshin Impact Theory](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dBKt6YJXSf8/mqdefault.jpg)
![[3.0] Khaenri'ah Did Nothing Wrong - A Genshin Impact Theory](/img/tr.png)
![[3.4] The Lore of Lantern Rite - Genshin Impact Speculation](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bsAe1J0Fe7M/mqdefault.jpg)
![[4.0] Dottore was in Fontaine - A Genshin Impact Theory](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/be-n0b3cKWQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![[2.7] A First Look at the Fatui Harbingers - A Genshin Impact Theory and Analysis](/img/n.gif)
**NOTES AND CORRECTIONS**
- several people have pointed out that a rooster can be associated with fenghuangs which to me never had too much of a real association with Xiao, HOWEVER- somehow I missed one line in the developer insights that actually addresses the rooster directly by referencing someone called Mekhila. This is apparently one additional source of inspiration for him which would actually make him line up with the rest of the Chinese zodiac theory. It still does not apply to Pervases though, unless the takeaway here is that that slot could just be any bird which I admit is very possible at this point.
I am surprised no one noticed this before I did ahahaa...
so.. Xiao Hua when, do you think?
He kinda like a Oni
Chickens are not birds
What makes Xiao different from other yakshas? Well, firstly, he's still alive...
That was my first thought.
dang beat me to it lol
TOO SOON
Lmao same 😭😭 ihms
Ooof!
"there's a 90% chance I'm wrong, but I play gatcha games so that's a 10% odds and that sounds kinda spicy"
Is the best quot for genshin theorists
10% is more than 10x the chance of pulling an early five star, the gacha system really messed with my judgement XD
Best quote for literally anything ever said by a gacha player
pretty inspiring tbh 😂
As someone who also struggles immensely to see their life being of any worth, I can barely put into words how much Xiao as a character means to me
You are loved bro. Keep fighting so you can get your C6 irl, like what Xiao is doing atm! :)
Hope you're doing alright dude
@@champagnepapi3742 bro, people that are on that spot know that they're loved, they just can't love themselves despite all that, they can't comprehend why they're loved by other people even tho they know for a fact they're worthless, because nobody knows you better than yourself...
How I know? I'm also one of said people hahaha
“If you've got time to fantasize about a beautiful death, why not live beautifully until the end?”
Gintama.
We gonna die anyway, sooner or later, it is just a matter of time. why not live beautifully until that last moment?
@@ShyDeath Because the one is more likely than the other.
i am shocked that the timeline actually makes sense in geo yaksha's case
eh. Correct me if im lacking critical information, but the 1k years ago death seems like a random guess, then apparently the fates of the other yakshas has been known, also, awakening during cataclysm seems a bit random too, as he isn't mentioned anywhere, etc.
@@LeaksHater i was actually going to ask this- that the assumption that he died 1k year ago, where did that come from- but if that is true then this timeline would work
@@zephyr4170 no idea if there is any concrete source. Maybe there is something in those puzzles in Liyue where you find one of the yaksha'a treasure or something? But my guess that its a very rought estimate in that the yakshas lived past the Archon war, but died before the cataclysm (electro and anemo yakshas excluded)
@@LeaksHater the new dendro archon says that Tevyat is run in the loop meaning Ashikai previous theory that the god of time is meddling the business proven to be right all along, these time thing around Tevyat already increase all of the theory Ashikai ever mention she points out that some moment could be changed or stay the way it is without changing the future
@@syarifht5929 nowhere is Istaroth or Kusanali related to the theory here. Also "loop" probably means here that everything is cyclical rather than literally time being reset.
have you noticed that most adepti (specifically moon carver, cloud retainer and even yanfei) refer to xiao as the "conqueror of demons" ONLY instead of his name over and over again, could be because xiao's trauma is mostly associated with his name so they avoid using any name completely
they refer to him his title as a form of formality since he also holds a senior position. It also shows the distance between them. Unless they're close enough or unless Xiao says so, his default name is Conqueror of demons
@@ehe5669 well he after all trained Shenhe and possibly Ganyu to how defend themselves, where Cloud Retainer, Moon Carver and Mountain Deer trained booth of them in the magical arts, Xiao taught them to how handle weapons like the spear and bow respectively
@Kiki nah man it is just a supposition, since he is the only adeptus that fights with weapons primarily than magic and Cloud Retainer and the other adepti in Liyue don't look like the warrior type to me
@raph it's doesn't,shenhe, Ganyu,Hu Tao still call xiao with his formal name
I think this is kind of a translation thing. Conqueror of Demons only represents the first part of the original Chinese title. In Chinese, this name goes 降魔大圣. if anyone has read Journey to the West, you will notice that Monkey King in this novel is also called the Great Sage Equalling Heaven (The sage here means someone of great wisdom or strength, it has no relation to the sages in sumeru), which in Chinese is 齐天大圣 (齐天=Equalling heaven, 大圣=the Great Sage). Therefore, if we translate 降魔大圣 directly into English, it will be The Great Sage Conquering Demons (降魔=Conquering Demons, 大圣=The Great Sage). Therefore, this is actually a very formal and powerful title. hoyoverse might think that if they translate it like this it would be too long, so they cut it short into Conqueror of Demons.
Anyway, the adepti refer to Xiao as conqueror of demons mostly because of respect. He might be the only adepti that is still fighting today so of course they respect him. that's also why at the dinner in 3.4, everyone (except for Traveller, Paimon and Venti) called him the conqueror of demons even though most of them don't know much about trauma.
Another point towards Xiao being from Sumeru is that People of Sumeru “Can't dream”. Xiao used to eat people's good dreams and left them with nightmares. Did the precious dendro archon then try to save these people by not letting them dream at all? Is that why sumerians can't dream?
I kinda doubt that considering he hasn't eaten anyone's dreams in thousands of years though..
@@horizon146 He ate the dreams, only having nightmares then got passed down to those people's descendants, and then previous Archon started the Akasha system?
What if the Dendro Archon initially wanted to control dreams to protect Sumerians but he became corrupt and Zhongli has to kill her? And to atone for that, Celestia maybe made him sign a contract to withhold that info forever?
@@champagnepapi3742 She died during the. Cataclysm
@@jalenjordan6837 It didn't say why she died. Zhongli could've killed her 500 years ago.
"The majority of the English community seems to at least see him as an edgy emo-character, or a tsundere stereotype." Cries for 5000 years at the injustice. So many things lost in the English localization it makes me so upset. I feel for the VAs who get flack for it too, since I know a lot of it was what they were directed to do. Thank you for these theory videos, they're very interesting, and I appreciate the effort you take in researching all the mythology. There was another theoriest that I liked, but they seemed a bit to... western-focused, which means a LOT of the theories felt slightly off or incomplete. I also like that you have your own theories, but don't try to force the evidence to fit them. Your hard work is very appreciated ❤
I'm CRYING because I've been studying Xiao's chronology and lore for MONTHS and when someone on twitter showed me this channel I couldn't believe how similar (practically the same) our theories/reflections are!!
So more details for you to chew on!
-In one of The Chasm quests, the Sumeru guy told us that The Chasm show signs to have been a forest/have been under the sea long long time ago, and that only through unnatural forces it became the zone we know now. So, being The Chasm Liyue Territory (i suppose) modeled by Morax' hands, it makes sense that long ago part of Sumeru was part of the Dream God's territory. In fact, locating Bosacious quest in The Chasm emphasizes this yaksha-the chasm-sumeru related thing.
-Related to this is what Xiao says about Bosacious in The Chasm quest. "You were Morax's first yaksha". So, for me, it made sense that yakshas were adeptus that "became" yaskhas through training (like Pervases tried), and they all "adopted" a new name when becoming a yaksha for "their king". Alatus, Bosacious, Pervases... all Latin names related to their animal form. So maybe that's why I think they don't call Xiao, Xiao? Cause they all call each other by their military rank?
-About WHEN Xiao got his new name from Morax: I don't really know about the Dream God slaving Xiao with his true name. ALTHOUGH, Xiao's chronology has always given me headaches until I realized that MAYBE Morax didn't gave him the name Xiao when saving him from the evil lord but LATER! Freed Xiao joined the yaskshas, where they call him General Alatus. No one called him Xiao then.... because (in my theory) Morax gave him this name to protect him from Celestia, 500 years ago, after sealing Azhdaha. (Remember your theory about Menogias having been designed after a figure that fought the Heavens...?)
-The lost treasure and Azhdaha. There's this quest about a treasure about an Adeptus whose name was erased from the chest we retrieved from the ruins and it looks purposely scratched. Who would want to erase an adeptus' name from history? Well, we have lore about an Adeptus who was Ascended to Celestia (Guhua) and another about the three adeptus who helped Rex Lapis to contain Azhdaha. One of them is unknown, as their name was scratched. (1000 years ago). Taking Celestia as the bad guys, maybe they got their eye on Xiao, the perfect martyr, and Morax changed his name and all the records about him in order to prevent his Ascension? "Alatus" was never mentioned again, only Xiao. // Or maybe the Geo yaksha was lost here?
-Fischl dragon: having the dragon in her play sidequest saying that eating dreams was eating the people's ambitions, I thought that maybe Xiao was forced to eat "Visions"/elementary power... That would be a valuable soldier, if he can turn every enemy into a lost soul like it happened in Inazuma.
-Chronology: I also thought the Dream God was the Sea God that destroyed Liyue+provoked Ghizhong's death. Morax created the jade spear to kill him, saved Xiao from him and then gave Xiao the jade spear as a symbol of freedom (when Morax had to create another spear in order to take down Osial. Xiao was already under Morax' command when facing Osial for the first time, 2000 years ago). So, again, being The Chasm originally underwater, and "related" to the yaskhas, I thought The Chasm may had been this Sea/Dream God territory. But being so close to Sumeru, maybe this Sea God was indeed /from/ Sumeru.
SORRY FOR THE LONG TEXT I JUST LOVE DISCUSSING XIAO'S AND ZHONGLI'S LORE.
PS: it has always baffled me how all adeptus wore Liyue's colours but Xiao wore teal, white and lilac... colours of forests and flowers. (Not only referring to his anemo symbolism, the teal one)
THIS IS SO COOL
thank you for sharing all that with us
❤️
OMG THIS INFO IS AMAZING
Thank you so much 😊 for your works
as I can see it "Adepti" is just the local name for the deities that live in liyue are going by. ln inazuma there equivalent are the "Yokai" so for xiao being originally from sumeru is very passable.
Exactly my thought
On the CN, their actual title is "Perfected Lord."
@@mariapazgonzalezlesme 仙人 translated is "divine human" actually, at least from my own knowledge. ofc, i cant just assume you don't know the language yourself or if youre specifically referring to the title of 仙人 at all in the first place so correct me if im wrong
its a little strange because im not sure inazuma mentions the yokai by such a name, i know that by japanese mythos they are but by genshin lore its not explicitly said
@@alexblack4048 like I said it's my opinion I could be wrong.
But just like how it is in the real world God and deities have different names based on what part of the world you are in and the supernatural beings of inazuma are the yokai.
So it's my conclusion that "Adepti" and "Yokai" are the same thing the only different is that one region based on china and the other one of japan.
“This is batshit if it actually works. There’s a 90% chance I might be wrong. But I play Gacha games! And 10% sounds pretty spicy.”
Ashikai gambling addiction confirmed.
Thats relatable tho💀. We need help!!!
Archon of gamblers
My luck is too shit to gamble with tbh XD
@@Ashikai so you’re like tsunade from naruto.
"Honestly i can talk about Yakshas for hours."
I need that vid in my life Ashikai-sama!!!!
Honestly, I do think that Menogias=Capitano theory has some decent legs to stand on.
First, I need to mention that not all harbingers seems to have connections to the cataclysm. We don’t know much, but Pantalone probably has nothing to do with cataclysm and is, overall, just a regular dude. As far as we know, Dottore doesn’t have anything to do with the cataclysm either.
Second, back to Dottore - hey, we have a mad scientist that creates copies of himself, who says that he can’t reanimate a corpse of a yaksha. AND, hear me out, he considered heretic, while Menogias references Son Wukon - which would be an interesting inversion of the Journey to the West story where Wukon was released by/to accompany A PRIEST.
WILD THEORIES LETS GO
we'll have to wait around a year or two to confirm it (if I were to guess). If we see Capitano with a dendro vison the chances will jump up. I still love this theory, even with the low chances of it being true.
@@uttopielec i guess so. Though, even if geo yaksha and Capitano are the same being, if he was resurrected - reassembled even - it would kind of make sense if his constellation and vision changed, reflecting him getting reborn with new fate and ambition, him no longer being Menogias in the eyes of the world itself.
Also why is there no confirmed harbinger from Liyue yet? We have Signora from Mondstadt, Scaramouche from Inazuma, and though we haven’t been there yet we know childe is from sneznaya. Also correct me if I’m wrong but I think we already know Dottore is from sumeru since he did experiments on children there. Even khaenriah has pierro.
Where is the Liyue rep? Since everywhere else has one it’s illogical to assume it just won’t have any. We’ve had a lot of events and story quests centered there, so it doesn’t make sense that we haven’t at least heard of them yet. Unless we already have been told about them, and hoyoverse is just waiting a couple years for a dramatic reveal. Hmm…
Food for thought.
@@bearerofthecurse69, I personally think that Pantalone comes from Liyue. Well... since he's so obsessed with money in which he was questioning gods having the power of wealth even when they don't really need it. And that kind of thought must have come from the one closest to him, Morax the God of Wealth.
@@lalaf9620 makes sense, yeah.
That sponsor transition was so smooth, didn't even see it coming
Jeez I thought she was gonna make an analogy that yakshas are sharks and i was like whut
What's really sad is that we won't be able to further interact with the Yakshas. I think that Bosacious would have been such a funny and joyous character, a little bit like Itto. Full of himself but in a good and fun way, always joking and playing tricks on people just to make them smile. You know, a "big brother".
I know this is a year later, but this reminds me of how the people with him parallel the Yaksha's as well, say, itto as the geo one.
They all felt so random at the start but make so much sense?
@Cloverstripe I always thought that genshin would find a way for the other yakshas to be playable. But it wouldn't make sense for the story and it would be very tough to implement them in the game story even if they were somehow resurrected. Because they would have to release them as 5 stars and with the increasing number of 5 stars in the game(more than 4 stars) it would be very problematic.
Fischl's mirage island theaters featured a dragon eating tasty dreams as its main villain and ate only good dreams. Bad, empty, and shallow dreams were a no-go... seems a little too coincidental to me if Xiao's orders were to eat good dreams. But that's just me.
most of these mythology references were from Hinduism and Buddhism, so I wouldn't be shocked if Xiao has sumeru origins, since Hinduism and Buddhism both originated from India, which is one of the references for sumeru- a good theory, i approve!
The story of Xiao's master taking control of him by using his "true name" might also be another tie to Sumeru. The concept of a "true name" or something along those lines actually comes from Egyptian mythology. There's a few different interpretations on what it means to know a god's "true name." Half the explanations I hear say that knowing a god's true name and using it will give you their powers. I actually heard of this one in a myth about Ra as to heal himself, he had to give his true name to another god in order to heal him and upon using Ra's true name, that god then was able to use Ra's powers to rule the world, but they apparently were very well liked and good at it. That interpretation is interesting because if that's true in Xiao's case, then that means that the power Xiao holds now, how powerful he is, isn't his true power. Xiao himself could've had a different purpose at one point and upon becoming a slave to his master, those powers were rather locked away like Lumine/Aether's or given up to his master for his master's own benefit. His powers might even be originally his master's and they were swapped, his master getting Xiao's original, maybe even more powerful powers, while Xiao got . . . depression. The other half of the stories seem a little bit more likely for Xiao's case, in which knowing someone's true name makes them your own living puppet. (Considering Genshin's themes of artificial life and puppets, I wouldn't be surprised.) I read a series as a kid based in Egyptian mythology that used this version and one character who knew another character's true name would sometimes use that power to make him do goofy things like slap himself in the face at a random, inappropriate time. If this is Xiao's case, then that's why he was never able to escape and why he was only able to go free after Morax killed him, because his connection to his master because he knew his name was like a shackle and chains connecting him to the wall, his name being the shackle and his former master being the chains. Once Morax cut the chain, Xiao was a free Yaksha. Like cutting a marionette's strings and the marionette being a real, living thing.
So, yeah, more to add to your theory that Xiao's from Sumeru. I support it 110%.
To add on to your Ra myth reference, the goddess Isis was the one to get his true name. She did this because she wanted her husband Osiris on the throne. So she made a magic snake out of Ra’s spit, had it poison him, and used to to get his true name and force him to step down.
WAIT YOU'RE SO RIGHT ACTUALLY
Because now, when Sumeru is out, and after Lilupar quest we can see Xiao and genie links. Because it was said, how a person becomes genie's master after finding out it's true name, and how the only way to break this contract is to kill the person. Which basically happened to Xiao's old master. Also, now we can see the dream connection clearer because dreams hold wisdom of people and have this "energy" in them (sorry, don't remember what energy is it, i just remember it's needed for something) and maybe Xiao's master was harvesting this energy that way, with Xiao.
37:04 - 37:30 Ngl, this part made me tear up. :') When it comes to characters who went through sm despair and loss to the point where they lose their will to live, I become emotionally attached. In Xiao's case, his atk animations were the reason I started to like him in the first place. However, learning about him as a character has led to him having a special place in my heart. I wish the people who only see him as an "edgy lord" to take the extra mile to understand him properly. It saddens me to see them reduce him to "emo and edgy lord" when he's much more than that.
It torn me apart from the inside
I'd say even if xaio was correctly depicted in localization he would still be treated in that discretion because we like to place characters into the closest trope we are familiar with. I mean , ayaka is clearly independent, kind of isolated but is serious when she needs to be. But we have decided to make her extremely dependent on the traveler OR a psychopath
that was my realization from the quest as well. the underlying themes of wills and xiao slow understanding what wills really are and what it takes to be the one holding it. He was never hopeful of a life beyond the endless war, and thus wasn't able to think of a future for himself, unlike the others who yearned to experience mundane lives despite knowing they'll never fulfill such wish.
I interpreted his last lines in the quest thus
"this war of ours MIGHT never end, but i, with a tainted heart, will be carrying their hearts with me, to bring them to a place beyond the battlefield. Heroes shall look out for each other (Could be pertaining to traveler but is also applicable for his late comrades in this context).
Xiao learns to give more value to his life as he gains a concrete duty of holding to their unfulfilled wishes
who put these onions here
Shoutouts to Ashikai being the only youtuber I trust to talk about Xiao and his characterization. The video was delightful and I honestly can't wait to see what they do with Capitano. If he really does turn out to be Menogias, I can only imagine how Xiao is gonna react :(
ashikai‘s yaksha video is like kfc gliders, somewhat of a meme but it finally came LOL excited to watch this!
edit: just finished watching, great video as always! there is one thing I noticed tho and it’s is in 1.3 story quest, it was the geo yaksha that dealt the final blow to the hydro yaksha, but in the 2.7 archon quest, it was the other way around. Idk if it means something but the pyro yaksha had the same thing in both cutscenes, screaming in pain, but in a different camera angle. With how deliberate hoyo is with small details, I wonder if it is sus or not.
The story if I remember correctly went like this; The Hydro Yaksha, in a descent into madness, struck the Geo Yaksha's heart, and the Geo Yaksha dealt the final blow to the Hydro Yaksha in retaliation, then bled out slowly right next to her, til they both died.
This is really interesting with the parallels of the group in the chasm to the Yakshas. Mainly how Yelan and Itto seemed to be pretty at each other's throats.
OH ACCURATE! Only difference is that Ashikai’s videos actually do come out! ;>
actually I have a theory about this...
Since Ashikai told us that the reference of Menogias is "Mythical Zoan Saru-saru no Mi : Model Sun Wu Kong" :v
It became so possible to think that he still alive and became "capitano"...
In legend, one of Sun Wu Kong's abilities is to "replicate" or let's call it "cloning himself". By this ability it self, we can assume that Menogias Death became so sus, since in the Cutscene where the Hydro Yaksha stabs Menogias with her claws depicts the death of Menogias, then what about the death of the hydro yaksha herself? who "killed" her if it was the Hydro Yaksha who won?
Well my theory is, the one who fought the Hydro Yaksha was Menogias's Clone, and right now he still alive and became the Harbinger with "black hair" :v
Well its just a Theory afterall, if that's became true, then Xiao's Arc still hasn't ended in 2.7, and he'll likely return when Capitano showing his face to Travelers or Xiao...
Well, to be honest, Capitano and Menogias' situation here reminds me about the situation of Obito Uchiha and Tobi (Fake Madara with Swirling Mask) in Naruto Shippuden...
I think it it was because originally we were hearing it from a book that talked about the yakshas which was later then said by xiao was a piece of “literature fan-fiction” and fast forward to the current flashback it’s being shown to us by bosacious who saw everything go down directly or maybe I’m just looking to much into it idk (｀・∀・´)
Xiao is such an amazing character. He's been through so much and you can really see the toll it's taken on him but I feel like through all the quests he's been in you can also see his growth.
Actually, what if the Fatui put Menogius’ ley line memories into the suit of armour? It’s more likely than you think, because Pierro might have wanted the buffest of buff members.
with xiao’s and his master’s association with dreams, and the information of people in sumeru being unable to dream, i am frothing at the mouth for more information about him and his master. i started playing genshin because i thought xiao was pretty and was interested in what a creator was doing in the fandom. and here i am. always excited for more yaksha content, i can listen to ash talk about them for hours. i want to learn of their origins as well. and how they ended up with morax and as yakshas.
I’ve been looking forward to this video since we finished the Chasm storylines. Xiao has a beautiful, tragic story that actually revolves around building healthy relationships and self worth. Forget lore, it’s a wonderful fairytale that tugs at the heart all on its own. I really hope Xiao isn’t the only yaksha still alive, and I’ll leave it at that.
I am constantly blown away by all of the mythological references found in Genshin, and how you and the other lore theorists can tie them all together, I can imagine the developers watching these with a big grin. Even if these connections won't be "confirmed" in game it's very satisfying when it all clicks for head cannon. Also you have convinced me that Capitano is the geo yaksha, even just the hair and design similarities, hiding his face definitely seems suspicious.
I took that scene with Morax and Xiao at face value, just as a request for permission and not much more to it other than some underlying concern that it would be dangerous till I watched this- and boy am I glad I did. The difference is subtle, but I’m so happy to hear that Zhongli doesn’t completely suck as a quasi-father figure, and that they’ve been interacting more off screen.
HOLY CRAP WE MIGHT SEE THE MONKEY KING!
That’s like the strongest character in Chinese mythology. If Hoyoverse makes a Sun Wukong equivalent in Genshin then they will be OP!
I doubt they will make em OP but maybe just strong
I will never get over the mischaracterization Xiao gets in the community. So many times it's shown why he acts certain ways or says things yet everyone just ignores it. The same can go for most of the lore with the yaksha so I'm very happy you made a video on this 🥲
This is a great video, especially with the analysis with Xiao! Definitely one of the most tragic characters in the game, and even moreso vilified and misunderstood. The devs made a big post around a year or so ago on his character design and development, and emphasized specific traits that most players won’t see at first glance (especially in English). He’s really a character that you have to dig deep into lore and analysis to fully understand why he is the way he is. It hurts when people call him emo and edgy since that is not what his character is.
Great video! Looking forward to the next one! ;) (Also still fully believing Capitano is either The Blood-Stained Knight or Imunlaukr.)
Also wanna point out how u mentioned Xiao's connection to Sumeru and i think further the proof would be his constellations having mentions of Eon which is Time ...in the artifact section too the Sands is called 'the sands of Eon' .. and.. the sands in sumeru with the hourglass shaped mountain... Xiao is somehow connected and doesn't feel like a coincidence.
Amazing video as ever. Watching ur videos give me motivation to keep playing this game eventho there's no content. Just makes me connected to the game even more!! :)
Oh my god.. I LOVED this video!
As a Xiao main and stan, this absolutely warmed my heart and you have such a good point about the relation that he has with Zhongli, especially during the Perilous Trail quest! I'm glad that I wasn't the only one who felt like his constellations we're hints of him growing as a character, moreso as we saw him recently.
Thanks so much for making this vid, your videos remind me how much I love this game and its lore 🤍🍃
I'm very excited for the origin of animal people, like Gorou or Diona, if you ever decide to explore it. This part of Genshin lore fascinates me the most. I wish we could see a village of animal people somewhere, or just more generic NPCs walking around in cities with cute tails and ears ^^
Thank you for this wonderful video
It's in my queue!
Explaining the actual meaning of the last scene of the story quest just bring so many emotions. I love your theory and analysis videos because they are accurate, researched and based. They're enjoyable and often not that far off from what comes next in the game. :D
True, i was about to cry
Hope there's a plot twist where mihoyo can make the other yakshas playable. I want that geo yaksha he looks chill like zhongli
u do realize that other yakshas (except maybe the geo yaksha) is really really dead right?
We could get one in sumeru if her theory is right.
@@Mai-df8sv nothing stops them from playable if Hoyo will continue all that ley line time travel stuff they are doing. We currently have event where we can see Diluc from the past and fight monsters that were there who knows how many years ago. In Raiden's second story quest we participated in planting of sakura tree that appeared in reality 500 years ago. If Hoyo really want to make them playable they actually can. All they need to do is create a quest where we will witness and interact ourselves with them in the past due to some ley line disorder (it won't be hard to implement if that tree from Collei dream is connected to ley lines)
@@AFKay-sv1dl still i hope thats not case for our xiao here, if the yakshas were to bring back from the dead/time travel shenanigans then Xiao's character development will be seen as worthless. Also, character design play a role on whether a character can be playable or not like for example:
The electro and hydro yaksha design is obviously was not meant to playable (cue signora cameo)
@@Mai-df8sv I didn't meant to say that Hoyo can bring them back to life. If we can interact with them enough in some weird sub-space and get to know them closer they can be playable without the need to bring them back to current time line
Playable characters aren't that cannon anyway, especially when you could play as Tartaglia at the same time when he was manipulating you to get the gnosis (even fight Tartaglia with Tartaglia), and by the end of the quest we had neutral relationship at most. It's not like they travel with us, so what's the difference?
I have to say, the sponser transition was one of the cleanest ones ive seen from any creator
Speaking of birds, can someone explain to me why Diluc is associated with THREE different kinds of birds?! As a Diluc fan since day 1 and lore enthusiast, it enrages me.
1. Eagle - symbol of his family, also symbol of Vanessa, one of the four winds. Eagle statues are all around his house. The animal fits the theme of anemo, plus the nation founded by hunters whose primary weapons were bows. The way he portrays himself in front of others goes well with the characteristics of an eagle as well.
2. Owl - his constellation (usually shows one's theme). Besides owls also being great hunters, how he's the dark NIGHT hero and how he's in fact very quiet, humble and not intimidating once you get to know him, I got nothing.
3. Phoenix - his goddamn burst, which is so on the nose, bombastic and simplistic compared to the rest, my mind pretends it's just an eagle made out of fire. Phoenixes here refer to rebirth, rising from the ashes (Diluc standing up for Mondstadt again after being disgusted by in the knights), flames (duh), dawn (name of his burst, again new hope). Yes, it's the most mystical and grandiose of the 3 birds, so it makes sense to be reserve for a burst, but why his?!
Pick one animal to describe you, because it's getting crowded and each one loses its significance!
@ashikai
Here's something related to adeptai and humans that i found interesting:
The quote from genshin's lead character designer:
"On the Continent of Teyvat, humanity shoulders a responsibility that is more noble than the Immortal ways upheld by the Adeptai. As such, in order to differentiate human's uniqueness from the rest of the races, only non-human creatures are referred to as Adeptai in Liyue." (Suggesting humans are called something else when reaching an immortal/ascended form - Perhaps he's referring to Allogenes aka Genshins?)
Source: CN Developer diary web page on the design of Xiao.
I can't even put to words what I feel about that video about the Yakshas and Xiao. All you said was something I thought myself and wondered if there was also a possibility for Xiao to endure his karmic debt better due to his past.... That Chasm archon quest was one of the Best so far. I've been in love with Zhongli/Xiao ever since I arrived in Liyue. When they had their rerun I couldn't chose so I took both of them home haha. Thanks for the video.
i need a whole video of ashikai just talking about the adepti and yakshas and xiao specifically as someone who LOVES all that lore
Finally an in depth Xiao video 😭I love this so much, hes my favorite character and I’m obsessed with his story. I’m also so glad that someone else thinks he could be from Sumeru/somewhere near Sumeru, and I hope he gets more story content after Sumeru is released.
Assuming that Menogias is a reference to Son vo kong, Sson vo kong was sealed under a rock while Menogias died fighting the hydro Yaksha. This is confirmed in the Bosiecious story cutscene where we see him getting stabbed / slashed by the hydro Yaksha as he falls. Also Xiao himself says that he knows the fate of all the fallen Yakshas except Bosiecious ( before the interlude). Tho this theory would be really cool, it won't happen unless the Fatui or Menogias himself were able to trick Xiao and Morax. Although now that i think about it there's a possibility, maybe when Menogias died he left behind a fragment (like Bosiecious that Xiao wanted to bring with him) or a curse ( i mean killed by a close ally does sound like a peaceful death) and Capitano might be that fragment/ curse given a physical forn. We've seen something like this happen in the story so i wouldn't be surprised if it's the case.
That's a really interesting connection brought up of dreams. Xiao's former master forced Xiao to eat dreams, while the first Dendro Archon Rukshadevata made it so that his people cannot dream and then we have Kusanali who can give dreams of string willed people a physical form. The Mount Sumeru from the myths I've read is considered to be the Center of any and all physical, metaphysical ( might be referring to something like the dream troller art ) and spiritual universes. I'm guessing Xiao's former master was targeting Sumeru as it seems kinda drastic for the 1st Dendro Archon to stop people from dreaming completely, but if this is the case then how and why did Morax went and killed Xiao's master. Not to mention the Adepti and Morax can invade people's dreams and bring people out of dreams as a soul kinda thing. Unless Morax and Rukshadevata had some ties with each other, it's a stretch but possible.
Morax sniped the evil god from afar with a bow (primordial vista), probably since the evil god specialized in mind control. She forced xiao to eat the dreams so she could get drunk on "pure hatred and revulsion" that comes after.
I’m pretty sure Kusanali wasn’t the one who gave the mirages a physical form? That was just the fatui machine. But the dialogue at the end of the summertime odyssey did say somethings about “a power that has something to do with me” so she maybe still has dream related powers.
If Menogias really is based on Son wukong then deceiving people is something he is an absolute master at. Son Wukong had the abiltity to create clones of himself, it is one of his most famous abilties among his 72. This ability could've easily decieved Xiao.
@@bloody4558 damn that could have even fool the geo archon himself
@@bloody4558 Geo Yaksha recieving the Geo Archon, it's hard to believe that would be the case
If your Capitano's theory turns out to be true... you're really our Lore Archon, Ash! You know, now, things fit.. especially for the timeline as you said. Man... What's the ratio between you hoping your theory comes true and not at all as you wanting them to surprise you as always?
Hmmm 20 true, 80 surprise. The truth is as high as it is because I think it would make for an amazing story between morax and menogias (and xiao), and 80 surprise cuz surprises are excellent and we still don't have a harbinger from natlan.
I love Liyue, the Yakshas and Morax. They're the reason I first played Genshin too. When I saw a video of the Yakshas trailer. Liyue is a place that keeps on giving us lore and I'm honestly here for it. I was a bit disappointed by Inazuma lorewise, but then the Chasm came out and I'm back to my Genshin ways and have not stopped since. Thanks Ashikai!! I just love all things Liyue. Best map, i swear. Best characters imho.
pretty sure yaksha stays the same in both plural and singular
@@stanloonaur69 oh is it? Alright thanks for the info
@@stormauror2642 np!
with how much monogious is referenced I have a feeling we will meet or see the story of the 4 yakshas sooner or later
I wonder if the Dream Eating dragon from the play sidequest on Fischl’s island has any parallel to what Xiao did under his old master
I've had Xiao since his first banner in 2021. I always loved his character, his design, his gameplay. But now I appreciate and love him even more.
I think the Theory of the Yaksha Being Capitano is HIGHLY plausible because of the constellation of the three nails. A.) as you have mentioned before, those are symbols of suffering. Yaksha, suffering…
B.) The more important clue to me is that we have seen three nails crossed together IN THE GAME. At the Bottom of I believe Dunyu Lake, there is a small pool with three crossed nails in the water. And that area is covered with Yaksha statues. It seems a little coincidental for one of the constellations of the Harbringers to be present at a sight related to Yakshas.
Another point to add to this theory is that even when a Yaksha dies, that doesn’t mean it can’t come back in one form or another, if you look at Pervases. He was dead, yet we met his physical form due to him using a special ritual. So it follows that there might be rituals that could theoretically resurrect a Yaksha. Plus, we’ve seen how Ley Lines can manifest physical memories, so the possibility of such a ritual would line up with other points of in game lore
the more I think about that Capitano theory the more legit it seems, it would be so cool if it was actually true
8:46 I don't think the Latinized primary names aren't really intended to mean anything (though the Menoetius connection is interesting!), they're mostly just Latinizations of the Chinese names like how "Confucius" is a transliteration of Kong Fuzi. The military titles do have meanings, like General Kapisas referencing Hanuman, though Chizapus (for Bonanus) sounds like gibberish to me lol
Even though greek mythology is far from Sumeru region and myth palate, Ocypete from Greek is a harpy that means 'Swift Wing'. The job of the harpies were also to carry punishment for crimes. Eating people's good dream is a punishment enough imo.
This of the Got me thinking, why there are only 7 nations in Teyvat? Maybe there were more nations but most of their gods were killed so their people got absorbed into the 7 nations (the culture of the original archons). For example, Havria is Huixtocihuatl, an Aztec god of salt and salt water. Her region can be of aztec culture, but reduced and her people absorbed to liyue and mondstadt.
In the same manner, maybe Garuda/Ocypete/Xiao were once an adeptus/demigod from this greek culture that was destroyed because Morax and god of wood take their region and devide is to liyue and sumeru.
We got the Bosacius quest with Inazuma (both electro), maybe we'll get more story about the other yaksha's when Fontaine, Natlan, and if your theory about Capitano is correct, Snezhnaya come out. But I feel like your theories are so good and well-thought that if it ends up being something different, it's gonna be disappointing lol
I forgot this was suppose to come out before the Fatui lmfao. Now Sumeru is around the corner I would love to hear a video about what you expect from Sumeru.
watching this because there’s 40 minutes until neuvillette’s next banner and this is the perfect length thank you
I was not expecting the "chonky Borb" bit at 22:38 in such a serious video (which is excellent as always). Anyway I was just researching Xiao inspiration stuff and it's nice to have it all consolidated in one very informative video. There is an unreleased bow in the jade series that when you read it's lore feels like it's Xiao lore. Given this and what we know I also think Xiao isn't from Liyue, possibly from an area near Qingxu pool. Whatever is to come I feel like after the last 2 patches we're going to get more Xiao and Kazuha lore as we progress through Sumeru.
omg omg, finally...
after all this time, we get a yaksha analysis! i can't tell you how much joy i am feeling, you must be too. ty so much for your hard work. :)
There is an interesting detail
In the first ever Yaksha animation, another yaksha kills Menogias
But in the final cutscene of the Chasm archon quest, it is shown that Menogias kills the other yaksha
yeah, when i watched that bit, i was confused as in the trailer it was quite obviously the other way around
I love this! I’ve been waiting on it for a while now since you’ve been teasing this in forever. And you delivered so hard. 💗 Xiao also holds a special place in my heart as he’s technically the first person I ever saved for in this game back in 1.3, so this video was a treat.
I honestly really wanted in 1.3 like I was ready to spend money for him only for him to be gone faster then I could pull out my wallet haha good thing he came in 2,4 and I finally got him and his c1
@@2triedforthis830 Congrats on getting him and sticking to your guns! People generally don’t use him anymore for meta nowadays, and that genuinely makes me sad since Xiao was essentially shunned from the beginning with the lack of supports and initial lack of specific artifact set for him. I still use him in the Abyss though and as my first actual dps in this game, he still carries my ass and even got me to 36 star the last cycle. I hope you enjoy his gameplay as much as us old Xiao havers! 💗
@@yesensei he actually made me do abyss more and like made me get 36 stars he’s amazing and I love him without him I wouldn’t be playing this game Xiao solos and is the best
@@2triedforthis830 I agree. He and Zhongli made this game enjoyable for me
@@yesensei frr!
thank you, been waiting for this! Xiao lore is so interesting
i really hope they will go more in depth with his character, and that people will finally be willing to understand him. mihoyo did him so dirty in en it's ridiculous, i will never understand why they did that to him.
about your theory of menogias being capitano, it's really interesting but I wonder why he would join the fatui🤔 maybe because of that same "anger"...
oh yeah!I remembered something in Egyptian mythology about someone's true name being part of the soul
As someone with depression and going into a hard time with traumas at a young age, Xiao means so much for me. Since the very beginning he is my main in genshin and I can’t get enough of seeing him and the process of him seeing himself as a worthy life. I‘m going through the same process, so he means a lot for me. Thank you for this video! I wanted to learn more a out him and this helped me to understand ^^
This might mean nothing, but in the novel 'Journey to the West', one of the antagonists is the Golden Winged Great Peng. So there's one more connection between Xiao and Menogias
Great work! really like your wild theories.
The lore of Yakshas is kinda obscure even for Chinese players. I can't imagine how much time you had spent to fight with all those strange terms and piece all information together. However, there are still a few mistakes, mostly due to translation mistakes.
The Chinese name of Bonanus 伐难（Fa Nan）doesn't mean "difficult to cut" but "conquering disaster". The Fa used here is a verb meaning "Conquering", and 难（Nan, 4th tone not 2nd tone）is "disaster" (Yeah, it's one of the tricky polyphonic Chinese words, and only in 2nd tone, it means "difficult").
As for her General name, actually……we Chinese players also don't have a clear idea why she is called 螺卷大将 (General Snail Spiral). My best guess is that she is referring to Santhila from the twelve Heavenly Generals (the twelve guardian yakshas in Chinese Buddhism) who is said to be a woman/goddess with a snail shell-like bun (another explaination is that she holds a sea snail catalyst when she appears). However, as you said, the other four Yakshas are referring to four different mysterious animals, and I'm not sure why she doesn't follow this pattern.
Also, though many materials would tell you that Mind-Monkey is Sun Woo Kong, '心猿' (Mind-monkey) is actually a much older term in Buddhism than Journey to the West. its original meaning is 'unquiet mind (a mind like a restless monkey)'. So, sorrry , your Menogias-Capitano theory now only has 1% chance to be true. 😁
I also have a feeling that Xiao has some thing to do with Sumeru. The Golden Peng plays a very important role in Hinduism and Buddhism, and the dream elements also add some suspicious connections.
BTW, do you have a discord or something? Judging from some of your videos, I guess you are suffering with finding correct Chinese translations and Chinese legends which, as a Chinese, I might offer some help.
I appreciate the correction but I have to disagree on the Sun wukong. He is distinctly referenced by name in the developer insights article as well as the novel journey to the West so it's pretty explicit that they are referencing this novel and not the original roots of the name.
I do have a discord but right now it's for members only because I'm not prepared to make it a public one. That requires staff.
Oh my goodness this is an amazing video!! I've been looking forward to it from all your mental breakdowns on twitter, which is a whole mood for any sort of creative outlet. I'm honestly floored that you can even dig up all this information. You must be amazing at any and all trivia games (that being said I do research a lot of random things but forget it near immediately). Your theories are so mind blowing and insightful. I wish I could say more, but right now I'm only capable of word vomiting
I always thought for a time that Xiao was only a tsundere for the reasons that he was scared of hurting others and that he doesn't deserve companionship. Though there's just also the fact he just isn't plain sure how to interact socially since he's pushed himself away from others, thus he makes himself appear aloof and distant.
In truth, although serious and distant, he's just awkward and has people's safety in mind and he'd feel guilty and responsible if anyone got hurt because of him. In his mindset anyway. That's kind what survivors guilt does to people. They put the blame on themselves even though they in truth were the victim. Of course as we progress we can see Xiao opening up to others, especially the traveler.
He's started to make exceptions to clear his built walls for others, willing to put himself in situations he'd rather avoid, like simply walking in public. And now of course, he's willing to indulge in the idea of making more friends because there are people who can handle his Karmic debt, like those with visions or of greater power like the traveler.
Xiao is a complex character. He's not some edgy tsundere for the sake of it. The way he acts is something he can't help because it's really all he's known. It what's he's beaten into himself time and time again, thus his lack of self worth. At heart he's kind and prefers putting the lives of others above his own despite of himself.
Watching your theory videos is always a pleasure. Not just for the information and lore than I may have missed in game, but because your delivery of said info and lore is so informal, chill and relaxing. It is readily apparent that they are a labor of love and something you are genuinely interested in. Keep up the great work, and thank you for all your time and effort!
The more I learn about xiao the more I understand why he’s my favourite and why I main him his character is so amazingly well thought of and his backstory is so interesting
I was so excited for your yaksha video to come out and wasn't disappointed with the result!! You always present information so clearly and unravel your thoughts like they're a big story in and of themselves. This video in particular helped me understand the nuances of Xiao's arc and just AGH made me like his character even more (and Morax too!!). Hoyo has such good character stories to tell but I dont always feel like they're executed in full detail so I miss a lot... I feel lucky to have a player like you dig in and share it all with us! Thanks for your hard work :)
First of all, it somehow just feels right hearing your lessons about the Yaksha from Yanfei, lol.
Second, hearing your theories about the overall plot and your knowledge of the real world influences to the mythos just solidifies my belief that you are my go-to source for the LOREEEE! Keep up the great work, Ash!
EDIT: Also forgot to mention that for 13:35, Xiao himself brings up more evidence for Bonanus being the one to find the solution difficult to solve, as he even quotes Bonanus’ observation that “it is rare for a Yaksha to find repose for their soul.”
Oh snap good catch!
Thank you so much for translating so much of the nuance of Xiao that is lost through translation and to the english-using playerbase. The misunderstanding of Xiao is the most prominent (& most personal) flaw in the english localization of Genshin.
I'm 1st generation asian diaapora: I grew up knowing certain values and concepts but without any ability to articulate them to either language (not knowing enough chinese & the concepts not really existing in english).
When I saw Xiao's design, played the Liyue archon & story quests, experienced my first Lantern Rite, then played Perilous Trails... I understood the kind of character Xiao was, from a deep sense of cultural recognition. The profound sense of loss, the intangibility of one's struggles, the isolation of being the last/singular instance of your kind... these are themes that are not only deeply established in chinese storytelling but in the wider experience of being chinese diaspora.
now, the latter is unintentional (Genshin is made in mainland china, after all) but it IS notable because of how impactful Genshin has been for players who are diaspora: the only prior instances of huge, western mainstream occurence of Chinese culture have been kungfu flicks and The Untamed. The Avatar cartoons & Kungfu Panda films ALSO hit asian diaspora hard but neither animation series was actually made by & in chinese: Genshin is.
so. the misunderstandings held about Xiao always feel personal, especially with COVID and its inciting a fresh source for east-asian directed racism.
uh. i was here for lore reasons and got feels. yay? but, mostly, thanks.
The fact that we might see more of xiao because he might be related to sumeru makes me even more interested and it appears that xiao is related to lot of important things
I love your theories and I LOVE reading this comment section for details that bolster or hamper a theory. It's been a long time since I've been into a series with such rich, complex, and mysterious worldbuilding.
Also watching this video and reading the comments is a funny coincidence for me bc I'm working on a story (that got out of hand lol whoops) where a couple of the "contract rules" between a summoner and their demon is not to give the demon a name, and give the demon your true name to be addressed by, for fear of the demon taking advantage of the summoner with their use. I thought it was just a cool concept (mainly in vague reference to Fae myths) but I didn't realize it had more basis in other world mythologies and religions, like in Xiao's case. Heck, maybe Xiao's backstory was an influence I didn't even think about! I'll have to look into it more to strengthen it as a plot point :P
I'm not certain if anyone's pointed it out already, however, some Genshin fans noticed that during the Perilous Trail Quest, each of the party aside from the Traveler corresponds to one of the four other Yakshas. Yelan corresponds to Bonanus. Shinobu corresponds to Bosacius. Yanfei corresponds to Indarius. And Itto corresponds to Menogias.
I'm so happy there's a video related to xiao explaining his character, genshin fans meme him too much and you can't put all the blame on voice acting.
really bizarre coincidence or maybe I've heard it before but the theory of him being from sumeru has been in the back of my mind for a while. something about his design never felt very connected to liyue. weirdly enough tighnari color palette gave me vibes of a modernized softer xiao. does that make any sense, probably not 😭
I dont think xiao es misunderstood at all.. majority of us just meme a lot with the characters in general (like zhongli being poor, when in reality he doesn't care about the cost of things even if they are expensive, he just forgets his wallet a lot, but is funny to picture him as a beggar) and some take those memes as the actual characters unfortunately
Yea but like majority of people actually thinks xiaos a edagy person and doesn’t like people which isn’t true at all, that’s why he’s very misunderstood. Also people actually thing zhongli is broke haha some people just look at the surface for characters and the memes also play apart of mischaracterization
Xiao childe diluc and kaeya are the ones that suffer the most from the meme culture getting normalized. incredible characters with the most interesting backstories. all lost in the fandom.
the curse of genshin getting too big
Of course there will always be people that don't understand and takes things seriously, and those are usually in twitter... but the majority of us are just memeing.. like every time someone takes something to much serious we collectibly tell them is just a meme and to go read the characters history for real depictions...
But I would agree in the case of scaramuche for example or characters like him, bc his back story is behind an artifact set that people usually dont read... so a lot of people created a headcannon throughout memes and believe it like it is reality...
menogias, is a reference to wukong who fought against the heavens, so if menogias is capitano warring against celestia who would be considered the heavens that would be cool.
I really hope Menogias will be playable at some point I need him for my pretty boys collection
Wow this was a massive work from you. Thank you for that and I´m glad we share the same thoughts about Xiao. Most people seem to put characters into a label and not look deeply into what makes them unique.
29:52 "they might still have the same attributes"
fast forward to "Kirara meets Diona" and "Xiao talks to Chongyun about Diona's Callirhoe curse of sweet mix"
You mentioning the kalpas/eons name in Xiao's constellations reminded me of Zaura's thread on Twitter, explaining the meaning behind Teyvat's chapter III "虛空劫灰往世書/The truth amongst the pages of Puranas", and giving new ways to interpret it by the original Chinese text.
It was proposed two different translations, based on how you can read certain Chinese characters.
"The Puranas and the False Kalpa of Emptiness", with 空劫 meaning Kalpa of Emptiness while 劫 meaning Kalpas. The other proposed translation is "The Puranas and the Akashic Kalpa", with 虛空 meaning Akashic.
Xiao's second constellation makes use of the two terms. It's translated as 空劫·虛空華開敷變/Annihilation Eon: Blossom of Kaleidos/Kalpa of Nothingness: Changes of Flower Blooming in Void (the latter is a literal-meaning translation from the wiki page). Here we see 空劫 being used as the Chinese characters for Annihilation Eon/Kalpa of Nothingness, and the second part uses 虛空 to mean Void (another form of interpreting the Akashic Records as a compendium of thoughts/events in a non-physical/astral plane).
Anyway, this could be seen as a stretch/reach to imply/strengthen a possible Sumeru reference. Or it's just wishful thinking. Anyway. Amazing video as always
I love this video! Honestly, don’t be afraid to drop 1 hour+ videos because your theories are always so interesting
Never clicked one of your videos so fast. I LOVE Xiao, he is my obsession, my favorite character in Genshin.
Tysm for this! Xiao was also my main reason for playing Genshin, so learning more about his lore makes me happy to know him better! ^u^
God you had me in the first half, I really though for a split second that sharks were sacrificing themselves to protect us from something from deep within the ocean
great video! i would def love it if the sumeru-xiao theory is real. And while looking at the fate of a char from their constelation, maybe that is true for others as well? for one, childe is kinda sus if he is in c1 or c2 at present and maybe in the future he will have some kinda war with the abyss (c3 c4 -abyssal mayhem)....but if so c6(annihilation) is the greatest red flag xD.... From other ones it fits if zhongli is maybe somewhere past his c3( jade - shimmering through darkness) since the it reminds me of the quote A star appears within the wild... a sun ascends as bright as... jade.
huh wearing the tinfoil hat is fun indeed XD
As someone that has being doing chinese zodiac illustrations the past 6 months... The rooster can be any bird.. sometimes is depicted as a fenix like bird not necessarily a rooster
I've never seen it as a non-rooster or fenghuang. Do you have a source where I can read about it?
@@Ashikai uff... I dont remember where I read it... I've translated a lot of korean sources throughout these past 6 months, bc the english and spanish ones where to "fortune telling" like and I wanted more mythological and historical references for my illustrations...
I now I was reading about depictions of the rooster in different cultures throughout Asia and some have discrepancies between them, one of those being the rooster and it had a pretty valid reason why you can depict it as any bird(something about the origin of the name I think)... including as a Feng Huang.. (although rooster is pretty much the standard now)
I would try to search in my bookmarks if I saved the pages that spoke about that and link them to you
I did a rough translation so maybe I misunderstood something...
Aaaaaa you’re my favorite and the only channel I watch when it comes to genshin theories! I appreciate the effort and time you put into your work! 💖💖💖🥺👉🏼👈🏼
Usually we smoke a little dendro to understand the trips of all the theories. But it seems this time we need to eat a diversity of elemental mushrooms to grasp the deepest meanings of things.
If all Harbringer being ranked with strenght, with Childe saying he is a great fighter. Capitano, being the second Harbriger, could line up because he is a Yaksha.
Yes, im wearing a tinfoil hat too
28:09
Lisa, who has a hourglass as constellation ("Time flys ") studied in sumeru.
Interesting.
Just in case you want to consider this. Garuda being associated with the wind is also associated with the being fast or swift. I know that Genshin tends to change names to their own version, but Garuda could be one variation. And Garuda has two other names it's known for. Those being Tarkshya and Vainateya. It's also possible he has one of those names or a look alike of one of those.
I listen to you in place of my typical podcasts coz your voice is so soothing to me, please never stop these deep dives!
Let's get it, the long-awaited yaksha video 🙏🏾 she delivers
I will always appreciate genshin lore TH-cam channels cause you guys bring depth to the game that hoyo could never 😍👌🏼 I’ve been cut off lore stuff for a while and now I’m trying to come back to it
Man, weve now left Sumeru and no sign of Xiao being connected to it, Hoyoverse really missed out on something cool 😅
27:08 It was also inspired the Pokémons: Drowsee - Hypno and Munna - Musharna
Ashikai realizing the Menogias-Capitano theory actually holds some merit is very entertaining to watch 😭😭
It gets worse
After watching you anguish about this on Twitter its so satisfying to see this finally out!!! Great work!