Later Edit: As some people have pointed out, I want to clarify some things that I worded very wrong and didn't properly explain. There ARE Herrscher Personas in the Current Era, as in beings born from Honkai inside people that are Herrscher Hosts. Some examples of that would be Welt Joyce and Senti. The difference from PE is that Finality has no control over them and they have their own free will. They are not slaves of Honkai going rampage and destroying everything like in the previous Samsara. There is also the Herrscher of Domination and the Herrscher of Corruption, who are beings born inside the Coccon of Finality, but they do not have a human host. They are more so the direct incarnation of their Authority and the Concept they rule over. I apologize if this caused confusion. Hello everyone! I wish to share with you a few words regarding my state of mind when making this video. While I'm happy with how it turned out, this was one of my hardest videos to make. I think that I rewrote the script at least 4 times before having the courage to record it. I took the conscious decision of avoiding providing a definitive interpretation of the concept of Honkai. With the information we have now, people could definitively reduce the concept to a couple of words that are fairly reasonable to understand, I wanted to present all the layers of the concept separately. I felt like this approach might disappoint some people due to the absurdity of the concept from a normal player's perspective. Does it have to be so complicated? No. That's why I feel like I explained everything and nothing at the same time. But, to be completely honest, I prefer this open-ended interpretation much more. Just like in the game, I don't want to trap "Honkai" in a single universal explanation, and I feel like letting it be this concept that can be interpreted in an endless number of ways is much more fitting. Thanks and have a great weekend!
Kinda... yes. Finality is just a name given to a higher existence in the Imaginary Tree by PE. Dr. MEI theorizes that this higher existence is actually another civilization that evolve though countless aeons, and the individuals merged into a collective cosmic consciousness. Given how Project Stigma also wants to create something similar, and the lines of text from Ch 31EX when Gray Serpent described the Spiritual Adam, it's safe to assume that the next step in our evolution as civilization is literally to become a single consciousness.
I agree with it doesnt have to be so complicated, one of the flaws in this story that i have seen echoed through many people in the community mihoyo goes overboard with the deep philoshpical talks and analogies a bit too much(ch33 is the worst offender imo) and leaves some stuff like the honkai kinda up to ur interuptation while giving u lore to build on, i myself dont mind it this way but i get why its not a good thing to do for general writing from a normal player's prespective who doesnt want a phd in honkai lore.
There's something I've been meaning to ask you, as you're the closest to a lore expert on HI3 I follow. I was playing getting Elysium Realm Chapter 1 to 100% when I saw a conversation between sim SAKURA and EDEN. SAKURA was asking EDEN if she knew where Jizo Mitama(the Key of Corruption) was as she wanted to use it, but Eden had never heard of such a divine key. Afaik, the only people who should know about Jizo Mitama are Higokumaru and Yae Sakura as they were in the Black Box/Sakura Samsara Stigma Space. And even then that only happened in CE, over 500 years after Yae Sakura got sealed in the Black Box. Literal no one else should know about it, especially anyone from PE or the ER sims. How does ER SAKURA know about it? Did Yae Sakura(as a reincarnation of SAKURA) have her memories get sent to SAKURA somehow? Did their consciousness/souls synchronize or something?
Love the fact that the relationship between honkai and humanity and the entire motive of this multi-year plot csn b interpreted as a fanfic writer getting mad at a author for not doing what they want so they launch multiple nuclear missles towards said author's home to retailiate.
One interesting interpretation I've seen about Finality/Honkai is that much of what it does to humanity as part of its "embrace" (spawning monsters, causing disasters, making Herrschers, etc.) is actually by accident. As you explained, Honkai is some kind of weird higher/abstract form of existence that isn't compatible with humanity, and its attempts to "embrace" might cause so much destruction and suffering because it just doesn't know how to do so "correctly" in a way that gets its desired result. It's a bit like how some people end up accidentally killing their pets by feeding them things which are okay to humans but lethal poison to other animals. That same interpretation also suggested that Finality is basically doing the abstract-higher-god equivalent of reloading a checkpoint each time it destroys humanity. It tries to "embrace" us, screws up, then reloads the 50000 year save file and tries again and again until it can get things right.
7:49 This gets me thinking: I've always got the lingering feeling that the HI3's story - even with all the grand delivery and emotional torque it brings - is not always what the writers actually wanted to write Like how we got multiple retcons, and a number of them were because of factors beyond their control (like, you know, "no Chinese historical characters" or "no horny/gay") So could this whole thing ("Honkai wants to be the protagonist and free from anyone's directions") be a metaphor to that? As well as the saying "we'll end this story the way we always wanted" (Himeko, Kiana) and "this beautiful story deserves a perfect ending" (Elysia)
"is not always what the writers actually wanted to write" i"ve seen long time ago that's also the problem that mihoyo has - too many writers. I also saw thats the problem in their previous game GGZ. But im not too sure since i just saw one comment long time ago in one of the GGZ videos here in yt.
They are being told from higher up to convolute the story on purpose so you get more story equals more money more characters. This was most likely not how the story was intended but it changes if the game becomes successful hence the convoluted plot twists.
It's a bit of a stretch. Retcons are... Pretty common, especially considering how Honkai was primarily a game and not a book and hence the writers probably didn't think it through, or finished writing the story yet, unlike books or movies where you can just rewrite parts of the story BEFORE readers read it
2:49 If we go by that definition... theoretically, it's possible that humanity might become "advanced" enough to learn the true nature and purpose of Honkai's "embrace" and thus could prepare themselves for it But then, the Honkai would probably have to make countless samsara until a human civilization that can "fit" appeared Somebody in ch. 32 mentioned that the ruins in New Atra is actually around 200K years old, i.e from around 3 samsaras before the present
From what I understood, it's more that it was from 200k years before Dr. MEI's Era... so if anything it's more like it's saying the Samsara before the Previous Era lasted 200k years compared to Current Era's 50k. And it's likely this is the intention since the CE is more aware of Honkai and prepared than the Previous Era (seemingly) was, meaning the true change came from their interferance with how fast the next Era learns.
@@TheGameRuler No, Fu Hua once referred to a 50K year era before hers when talking about samsara with Kevin He also said that all the samsara lasted 50K years The New Atra ruins being 200K years old is in separate conversation, and it didn't involve those 2 chars
I love the concept of honkai as a fiction. If that was the case, i cannot wait for herrscher of omegaverse, herrscher of shonen and herrscher of furry to appear
Interesting but I disagree. The first one to say the honkai wants to "embrace" humanity was Elysia, and she wouldn't have used analogies. Also, as the first Herrscher ever, she's most attuned to what the Honkai really wants to do than anyone else. She never talked about a test or forcing humanity to evolve. That's why I think the honkai is not interested in any of that. The honkai just wants to find someone it can interact with, some form of companionship, that's what "embracing" really means. The reason the honkai's incursion on Earth has had such disastrous consequences for humanity is simply because the honkai and humans are pretty incompatible, but the honkai never meant to be hostile. In any case, I think this is gonna become more clear when Kiana becomes Finality. I think at that moment she's gonna learn the honkai's true intentions and I think it's gonna be pretty surprising for those who still think the honkai deliberately tried to harm humanity.
Was it really Elysia? Where? I didn't see her talking about it in ch. 34 The first time I heard the word "embrace" was during Tesla's talk in that chapter And as I see you're responding to Homulabs' use of "test" or "wanting humanity to evolve": that's him explaining what the Honkai is from each "layer", and he himself has said that its true intentions is incomprehensible to humanity and that it only acts on "instinct" or "nature"
@@IAmDAN004 Ely said that in chapter 31 if I remember correctly (could be in ER though). And adult Ai-chan said the same thing in chapter 33. Tesla doesn't count because she's just a human scientist and has no special insight on the Honkai. Ely's take on the Honkai is much more trustworthy because she's a Herrscher with a special connection to the Honkai. And Ai-chan can see the future so she also has special insight that Tesla doesn't have.
@@1idd0kun I don't remember Ai-chan ever talking about the nature of Honkai there I only remembered her talking to Durandal and Sushang about trying to go back to earth by "walking"
@@IAmDAN004 Ai-chan told Durandal this: Ai-chan: "For humans, the end result is quite painful, but it's not because they're being seen as insignificant. It's quite the opposite. It's because the honkai wishes to embrace us and loves everyone of us in a way that is too much for us." This is my translation of Ai-chan's dialog in Chinese. The official translation could be a bit different (I don't play on GLB so I don't know). It shouldn't be too different though.
@@1idd0kun Just checked that line, Ai-chan said "that original force" instead of "Honkai" And in the next sentence she said "Origin betrayed Finality" The rest are right tho
10:57 In a way, Honkai can be seen as the physical embodiment of the concept of "entropy": that given enough time, everything will devolve/degrade/erode/(any other kind of "negative change") into incomprehensible chaos "Honkai" in this case can be seen as the thing behind this law of "entropy" Thus, "Finality" (in both literal meaning of its name and what it's represented as a concept here) is indeed related to Honkai
5:50 So Otto only saw the "side effect/wastes" of the function of Finality (i.e resetting the world) and thought that that's what happens to the world that fails its "test" In this manner, those bubble universes are akin to the "pruned timelines" in Fate Grand Order - when the "world" decides that a certain parallel timeline can no longer "advance" in a meaningful manner, it gets "pruned" and stuck in time Though, I think it'd be better for you to stress that Finality's Samsara doesn't reset "time", but rather "civilization"
Before starting the video i’d like to say thank you for all your videos 🙏 i play honkai since 2018 and i was kinda lost sometimes, as certain aspects of the story are a little tricky to understand 😅 buts your channel helps a lot !
Soon I will compare your understanding with mine and draw conclusions, it will be cool. Thank you for giving a different angle of view on honkai, so it's easier to notice what you missed.
Honkai's story does feel like hotpot of several concepts.it's like the writers don't know how to tackle it. Or maybe they are trying to make it needlessly complex although that doesn't really have much merit since on games players usually skip the dialogue and go straight to playing the game. I think stories like this will make more sense if made as an anime.
7:41 Fun fact: there are a few times where "the writer and his story" as a form of saying (i.e "the story and its characters are at the mercy of their author") is used in Honkai There was one time in Alien Space comic where Ryusuke attacks Welt from a higher dimension and Welt can't do anything about it, and Ryusuke likens himself to a writer I think Otto in the game uses that kind of saying too, though I forgot the context
Its apparent Genshin runs on the same concept/idea, being part of the Honkai multiverse. Narratives/fiction is important in Genshin, as seen in the books and Scaramouche's interlude chapter. Even if a concept/important figure was erased from the Irminsul, only perception/written records/books are altered, not actual physical events and end results, akin to Schrodinger cat theory. However, if the true story was hidden through vague enough metaphors/fairy tales/out of the Irminsul reach, it won't be erased. The traveller's role in Teyvat is the equivalent of several aspects in Honkai; Elysia - being the key chance for Teyvat to break out of the ongoing samsara/sealed fate, Project Ember - preserving true knowledge from the previous era to be used for the future, Divine Keys - their ability to use the weaker version of the Archon's elemental abilities similar to Key of Blankness.
Yep! That's very true, but do you know the reference of the Samsara? My guess is the political samsaras in China that have continued for 3000 years or so.
Wow. Once you understand Honkai, the depth and writing for Elysia just enchances. As the 1st herrscher that loved all of humanity and actually did embrace humanity as much as she could. Gone but not forgotten. RIP Elysia.
This Finality thing just sounds like some kinda collective conscience. Humans tend to be more individualistic and these two ideas will naturally clash. I like how Hoyoverse plays around with many concepts in interesting and thought provoking ways that are open to interpretation.
love your lore vids! real good quality and your breakdowns are easy to follow along with despite exploring some real heavy and complicated concepts. I also appreciate that you take the time to explain the origin of all these separate ideas and themes, like which aspects are influenced by philosophy vs sci fi, etc. these are such interesting combinations and I wonder how the writers come up with it honestly! any plans to explore Prometheus' role in the story more thoroughly in a future vid? I don't quite get the whole deal with her and/or the will of the honkai.
I just rewatched your video on Elysia's sacrifice last night and in it you mentioned you'd talk about the Honkai/Finality in a further video... How lucky that today is the day! You truly do an incredible job with these video essays. Thanks for your effort combing the lore so that we can understand it! Honkai is starting to feel a lot like Dark Souls with how open-ended its lore is which is great but also monstrous to grasp.
Finally got around to watching this and I have to say, it's really refreshing to see multiple ideas presented at once, debated for and against equally and taken into account seriously, using real information and not just interpretation (where it isn't necessary). Really cool. While miHoYo definitely is happy to retcon to make way for their newer version of the story, I'm glad there are people like you who clean stuff up in their own way, so that many others can take all this information in.
6:30 in a technical sense tho herrschers are fundamentally abstract concepts that's why they are embodiments of "laws" in the first place, not that it matters since it was proven herrschers can also wield multiple laws such as kiana and sirins case or HoC. but the first to prove this was actually mei's herrscher persona in nagazora she explained that herrschers are born consciousness separate from the person meaning "herrschers" are born persona's without a body not constraint by their reality, this was also proven when herrschers like welt could exist without a form and could reform his physical existence and so is bronya. another case is the 3rd key and raven, she says the key has a mind of it's own and she speaks to it from time to time since herrschers are not bound by the physicality of reality they should not be constraint by the aspects of physics in general or "concept of space-time" described by ideas as herrschers can fundamentally become almost anything as they are made of ideas, also mei proved it in chapter 34 after breaking free from the cage called "dreams" that grey serpeant even mentioned that herrschers are made of "pure concepts" implying they are imaginary forms that had no physicality to begin with simply quoting aristotles fundamental reasoning on "universal concepts" and transcendial concepts such as "love", so in a sense they are also not constraint by realities and could fundamentally transcend them. more in that aspect relating to what you said about plato funnily enough, even la nina from the web novel implied that they are the law they are the transcendial concepts, they embody the entirety of the bubble universe and it's the higher dimensional concepts itself. before durandal integrated with and inverted the the bubble universe inside her. well compared to herrschers from PE they are fundamentally different concepts but of the same nature. both are abstract in nature and shape all of reality they encompass. but the real interesting part is sirin, who could fundamentally use all authorities, creating an imaginary space/or fictional narrative like you said is very easy for her if she ever knew how to use them. she was also considered the biggest threat in CE.
Holy shit I LOVE this lore video to bits!! I would totally not have liked it nearly as much if you only went with one explanation on what honkai is. I know MiHoYo's love for cosmic horror since ggz so I totally accept this explanation of the honkai(or rather finality) being this horrific incomprehensible unknown that humanity is too wet behind the ears to understand. You did a phenomenal job! Liked!
Even though i have played this game for more than a year now and have caught up to the latest chapters I wouldn’t dare to answer the question about what is Honkai lol , the interpretation that I had liked the most was the Otto one in chapter 17, I don’t know how many times you had to re read the mind numbing lore from chapter 31ex to the latest chapter to make this video but you did a very good job and thank you for it !
15:17 I don't think you're looking at it completely right First off, there was the HOV persona inside Kiana that was genuine - otherwise, Elysia wouldn't mention her among the other "fallen Herrschers" (Then there's HOS, though she's also kind of an outlier in her own way) Then on the topic of "fallen Herrschers", Elysia and Mei did note that they all "fell" because of human vices and flaws. The fact that the Honkai can still use emotional manipulations (i.e sweet tempting words and the like) to bring them under its will is what scares me more, tbh And about Ana... what is truly going on inside her head would forever be a mystery, although she does mention that she's losing her memories bit by bit and she fears that she'll be losing her mind (which did happen)
@@elysainempire4628 But the fact that Elysia and Mei talked about her separately from Kiana means that she is indeed a Herrscher persona (or more influenced by Honkai than Kiana is)
10:26 Excuse me while I'll being philosophical for a moment When a kind of being is incomprehensible to humanity but is viewed as "lower" than them, we tend to call them "animals" But when a kind of being is incomprehensible to humanity and is viewed as "higher" than them, we call them... force of nature? Phenomena? And the way humanity assign qualities like "embrace", "love" or any other kind of human "narrative" to those "incomprehensible higher beings" is how we got the "gods" of old myths like in Greek, Egypt or even Mesopotamia
Great video. Sad I only just got to it, but I really appreciate your approach to the story as interpretations and with less finality(ha) which is a problem I've seen with many others trying to interpret it confidently and be so wrong. I had pages and pages of notes myself, and it's great to see someone compile all the information the game gives us well in an open explanation. Thanks!
It should also be noted that Anna was a Scheriac, and would supposedly also have the Scheriac stigma. At the time her stigma would have been personifying as Hare, herself an anti Herrsherr weapon of sorts. That, coupled with understanding she could be running into Owl (who she loved but betrayed) would have been easily enough to shake her personality to it's core. Also, Herrsherrs seem to arise mostly from individuals who are in very compromised situations for a lack of a better word. Sirin was put through extremely dehumanizing experiments when her eruption occurred, and Windy was likewise crippled by the experiment that put the core of desire in her leg. People under extreme stress tend to lash out, regardless of if they regret it later or not, and if the will in the core is simply an amplified will of the user, that moment might act as a resounding sound in an echo chamber. Most often Hersherrs seem to become most aggressive right at a moment of perceived betrayal. Though I think this is mostly in support of your arguments.
Thanks for breaking it down, been looking for a way to bring all the rationalizations together. I particularly like the one in which Finality is a higher dimension civilization looking to eat us, lol! It actually makes sense since they genuinely want to absorb us but need to break us down repeatedly until we are digestible I mean evolved enough to be on equal standing with them. Of course that would mean enriching their collective with our own so in a way we are food. It also makes sense that they would use concepts we can comprehend in an effort to communicate their will. HOWEVER, by forcibly mutating another lifeform towards it's ultimate evolution I have to wonder if it's not also out of self-preservation as a different outcome of our Finality could be toxic to them and spread like an infection if we were to be left alone, like a tumor on the imaginary tree.
Thanks so much for this. I started the game during chapter 32 and did it to get Raiden Mei, and I was so lost. I’m slowly piecing it together but this helped a lot. I found your channel a few weeks ago through the Genshin/Honkai video you made a while back.
Wow... Im so glad we have you to unravel all these concepts to us. Homu - Profesor of Honkaiology 🌟💚🍾 We're all blessed by your content you know that right? 😉👍
this last couple chapter makes my mind work so hard about what is happening now im understand even though i should not take some explanation "literally"
I just found you and I almost don't know anything about Honkai Impact 3rd (I'm playing Genshin). Love your way of explaining things that even I can (kinda) understand. The fact that the game needed so many years to finally give players some clues about its world structure etc. makes me feel a bit hopeless for the world of Teyvat lol. But anyways, great video and fun editing, I enjoyed it a lot.^^
From the recent Archon quests, and some important world quests, Teyvat seems to run under the same laws as Honkai world, just different presentation and terms, but core concepts still the same.
You know this all rings a bit familiar to the Marathon series, an old Bungie game, it too had an abstract plot that's hard to grasp but once you think about it for a while it makes complete sense (I say as people are still trying to decipher Marathon Infinity 25 years later). It also has fourth wall breaking themes that you don't notice till you squint at it. Marathon had the theme of the player being a game's destiny, and Honkai has the theme of an author being a piece of fiction's god. However, I feel like the biggest thing is the connection is both games' connections to future games. The Halo games were originally suppose to be apart of the Marathon universe to the point where the logo is everywhere, and Destiny has one or two lines of direct connections. Genshin was suppose to have a direct line about the Honkai, seen in the cbt, most of the Archons look like Honkai characters, and Honkai Star Rail has Welt. Also Terminus and Istaroth I guess, if you squint, I mean marathon 2 almost had the Flood. I'm hesitant to say that Hoyoverse were inspired by Bungie because Marathon is an obscure af game that only recently got a spotlight shined on it thanks to Mandaloregaming.
heh maybe it just a coincidence for a ninche trending thing. Computer Sciences tries make "Abstraction" be something solid/real by translate/simplify and concentrate many trivial subjects to desired result/subject. This is something in pratice for more than 50 years by IBM. Also used in Asimov's fictions. Some Computer languages such C++ and Java have the "abstract" method to declare a volatile interface into memory/register, which render in a method which changes acordenly users (or code) interaction. Artificil Inteligente is made of Abstrations, Imaginary Numbers (I know as "Numeros Nebulosos") and probabilistics. With this many common references is way impossible to a sci-fi heavily made on top technologies don't* touch such terms and narrative models/methods Welp, also in arts, "Abstract" was made well popular in 19th century, and I made a bold "made popular" since Christians, Greeks, Egyptians and Chineases do made use of "Abstract" & "Open to view's Interpretation" way before 10th century
5:06 So from this intepretation, Honkai is like Anti-Spiral from Gurren Lagann - combined will from several galaxies that forms an ethereal body of astronomical proportions And Spiritual Adam can be likened to it as well
sorta of, peharps Anti-Spiral is a very high dimentsion being, it doesn't want to evolve any further, so it freeze itselft and want to prevent any other race reach their evolution/dimension level because the multiverse is limited and cannot handle too many lives/energy
Big thanks to u for this piece of content and thanks to all of the story writers in mihoyo who made this Wonderful story. I didn't imagine to find a story that is this deep in a gatcha game.
Thank you for this as I was also kinda confused in the last chapters. At first I thought honkai or the Herrscher of Finality just destroyed the civilization and humanity just flourished again after that, but it actually resets. Which gives more understanding as to why the history kinda reflects ours ( or even the previous era). That gave me a theory of sort that maybe because of the reset why there are two versions of Mei and Himeko and maybe because Kevin, Su and Fu hua survived, we don't get a version of them in the current era. And Kiana bacame kinda like the Kevin to Mei in the current era. Its just my theory though. Another thing also that it this could also explain about the Sky people in AHPO as Void Archives said that they pose a greater threat as they seek Honkai energy. Maybe the Finality's real reason was to help humanity against such threat like the Sky People. Anyway thanks for this as this really help the community to understand the honkai lore. Keep up the good work
17:11 I heard that the "Paths" are supposed to be the "ways" that each Aeon left behind as they expand in power/present their power in some way, and different playable characters follow those different "paths" and they become a basis on their gameplay mechanics (CMIIW) And so far, I don't think there's anyone who has the "Path of Finality" listed on their profile yet
Paths are like classes in RPG. Preservation are Knights Abduance are healers Destruction are Thief Hunt are Warriors Erudition are mages Harmony are enchanters Nihility are debuffers
@@okularnik125 I can understand most of that, but how is destruction thief??? None of the current character exhibits in any way a thief-like playstyle. They aren’t known for speed, they don’t steal items, and they don’t disable the enemies. If anything, they’re a bruiser or dark knight archetype. MC has a blend of aoe and single target, Arlan spends hp for high power attacks, Clara dishes out hits for taking hits, and Hook is a similar vein to MC.
I personally don't believe the herrscher persona thing to be a retcon, because of the fact that it was called will of stigma; Stigma were exclusive to herrschers until Dr. MEI and otto both recreated. It was just given a different name. Really like the choice to have an open-ended interpretation; I think it's very fitting, so kudos to you.
I said retcon in the sense that they probably had a different idea with it initially, not because it doesn't fit. As I mentioned in the video, this version fits much better with the current lore and makes sense. In fact, initially I went on a 2 minutes ramble about how this ideas fits the narrative better but I decided to cut it out from the video since I didn't want to make it too long. :))
This is a great video! This summed up my feelings on the subject perfectly. Also, the part concerning the difference between "honkai energy" and the Finality, as well as Honkai energy being "imaginary energy", is explained all the way back in the anti-entropy visual novel. During Tesla's explanation of Honkai to Welt, she mentions that the scientific name for honkai energy is "imaginary internal energy". This energy is also theorized to be a fundamental part of creation that's related to the process of reality in which the superposition of possibilities collapses into one measurable reality also known as "collapse energy" or in other words "Honkai" energy (for anyone who doesn't know, the word honkai means collapse). Also, about Terminus, I believe there is quite a bit of evidence now to show a connection between the cocoon and it. Considering this and the way Genshin's Primordial one bears a strong resemblance to the Demiurge it seems as though a lot of the beings responsible for the events in Hoyo's games may actually turn out to have been Aeons all along, at least on the imaginary side of things that is.
Here over a year late seeing if I can glean clues about Acheron and any connections to "Finality" as a concept. You are still undefeated for Honkai lore.
You don't need to understand what it is. Since it doesn't have a definitive meaning. Honkai's meaning is too general (grandscale) and Mihoyo made it like that to make more stories. That's what you need to focus on. In short, it's like milk with a lot of brands but sell the same product. If you know the Fate series it's like that. Thats why it's called Honkaiverse or Hoyoverse
I just recently play HSR but immediately curious of its lore. While I'm not playing HI3, I read the comic for source for my lore-craving. Honkai universe is indeed a well written story. What intrigued me is that, IMO giving an "incomprehensible" foundation concept produces numerous great stories. Honkai in Honkai-verse, Will in One Piece, Magic in Fate Series, etc
Wonder if we can put that Aeon thing into Genshin too as, you know, tsaritsa plan to become some kind of finality for genshin world, cause so far seems like genshin lore follow the same system with samsara. But anyway, waiting for chapter 35, can't wait to see how they willd end it and how continue and i hope they will connect SR to Honkai more properly
As a Genshin End game player I'd like to try to answer this. In Genshin civilizations get reset a lot faster then 50,000 years and has the Irminsul to help with resetting a civilization. In my opinion Tehvat is an artificial world that was re-engineered by the Descender we know now as Phanes or the Primordial One. Before the arrival of Phanos the world of Tehvat was quite different but the point is it already was its own reality with its own set of rules, etc. Thus why it suffers such massive entropy world wide as the artificial environment Phanos built slowly erodes away, examples of this are found everywhere. The Chasm's black mud, the filth collecting in the roots of the Sacred Sakura, the Maranara in Sumeru. It also explains why the abyssal corruption drives every living citizen of Tehvat into a kind of madness, similar to being controlled by the Will of a Herrsscher. None of us know what Phanos is or where it came from but clearly it's purpose was to remake the world to study human civilization/evolution. Once humans deviate from its plan they are pruned from the system. Guili Assembly, Old Mondstadt under Decarabian, Enkanomiya, Gurabad, Sal Vindagnyr and Khaenriah are all examples of failed civilizations due to some 'calamity'... It's quite possible that Phanes no longer controls this artificial world any longer as the 2nd Descender really rocked the boat.....lol. Now Tehvat is heading towards another Pinnacle in its development and yes I believe the Tsaritsa is attempting to take control of it's authority. The human experimentations taking place under the oversight of the Fatui with their Delusions and harvesting of crystal marrow are seemingly comparable to those carried out by organizations in the world of Honkai Impact 3rd. One final note on Domains in Genshin. It's unclear who built them but the withered white tree and the exchange of resin for artifacts that seem to represent the 5 aspects of Phanes and its 4 Shades seem to imply that human Ascension is encouraged albeit for the chosen few who have received a Vision. To me this seems like a test of possible candidates in every Era of human civilization like a single format of Honkai. That in itself is worth considering.
@@HomuLabs Its okay. So far both Genshin and Honkai runs parallel in terms of story, just different terms/wordings/narrative presentations. Even if the presentation is different, the core story/outcomes is still the same. Also Genshin's story is still not enough to put the deeper connection.
Gotta say, great video :) Understood quite a lot!... which I'm thankful, because lately the story drags quite a lot x_x, though nothing that can be done about that if the story is finally ending.
Great summary and explanation of what Honkai is and Finality's relation to it! I've been wondering about the grown up Ai and the pseudo time crystal thing as well, can you explain that too?
I'd consider it a personal gift, becuse it fits my suggestion way too well XD That said, now I feel entitled to leave the entirety of my conclusions and opinions here, so bear with me. "Honkai rises with civilization", or "Civilization counterforce", wasn't even really challenged throughout the story until Ch17, where we'd get new insights anyway. At that time with that limited amount of information, it was easy to conclude that Honkai is just a chaotic force, Herrschers are always hostile, and non-hostile Herrschers are made because of Herrscher candidate's willingness to stand up straight (hello, Malkuth). The only thing (again, at the time) that would suggest otherwise was the Seed of Sumeru manga, or specifically, Su reaching the place for the enlightened. I took an issue with Otto's "Honkai is a test", because no matter how you spin this idea, it returns to the fact that the test has been created with an *intent* , which implies sapience behind the machinations. But what if there's no intent behind Honkai? What if it occurs naturally? Otto's observation is also clouded by the fact that he observed the Honkai with the Will of Honkai pulling the strings, but the Will of Honkai wasn't always there - it only appeared near the end of the last Samsara. For the Previous Era there was no Will of Honkai to try to understand. Interestingly enough, Otto in his own "Honkai is a test" gives us an answer of what a Honkai could be, if it was not created by a sapient will. It's a clash, an emergent phenomenon, a consequence of the struggle between the Imaginary Tree and the Sea of Quanta that gives birth to something more complex than itself. It'd mean that it's impossible to stop the Honkai without tipping the whole system, and tipping the whole system would be a googol times (10^100) more destructive than any of Otto's or Kevin's plans. Ngl, I like this because it echoes well the real world physics, where from the 4 natural forces (gravity, electromagnetic, weak nuclear, strong nuclear) a great deal more forces and interactions occur that form the world around us. And it pains me to part with this side because Star Rail implies a sapient will behind Finality. 12:28 >Chapter 35 will give us more answers Ummmm... I feel guilty now. Back then in the suggestion, I typo'd "Chapter 34" instead of "Chapter 35". Because of course there's gonna be more stuff when Kiana takes in the Finality. Another thing that you'd notice if you observe is that the Samsara is somehow applied only to the living beings, but *not* to the geography. The example of that is the continent of Mu, which has been destroyed by the Herrscher of Earth in the Previous Era, but wasn't "reset into existence" by Finality when moving into the Current Era. We still have the Mariana Trench in there, and the Deep. I also had the bit about how humans aren't the only one who's subjected to Honkai, but you did touch upon it in the end. So, whenever a sapient race capable of forming civilization is born, it receives a gift of it's own Honkai hourglass that spins around every 1 577 880 000 000 seconds? That's interesting, so I did an interesting calculus that makes it probabilistically impossible for some event we all know did occur, *to* occur. Let's say the Earth and the Moon in the Honkai universe have existed for as long as they do in reality: that would be 4 billion years. Obviously, the humanity came much later than that (Cambrian explosion happened much later than that), so we can reduce the upper limit, but if we start there with the Moon, and put the Cocoon of Finality at that time, for the time until now it'd make only 80000 Samsaras. Why *only* 80000? Because the gacha's flying chance for humanity to roll Elysia, as calculated by Dr. MEI, is 1 in 100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000. That's no googol, but still a staggerinly bigger number than 80000 (which is, again, a *higher* estimate). I do feel like I should add more, but can't put into words what to add, so I'll leave it here for now.
A facinating and really well done video! Considering how bad the english translation is and how they love to overcomplicate things, this brings some clarity as well being something of a collection of info that makes it easyer to understand some of the more older and spread out stuff. I really think u did great on this though i would't be suprised if the next chapter throws it all in dissaray again.
I gotta ask man, which character do you relate with the most? Each character definitely has a persona that touches the feelings of one close to said persona
there are also more stuff , like for example that little by little honkai is erasing all world, at a faster rate that new ones are born, as the discussion Su and Kevin had, that there are not many chances left to try defeat the Honkai. Also, last time they tried to make a Finallity Herrscher, they ended up making Null, and poisoning the planet, they stopped the original finnallity but the planet got doomed anyway... and so many more things explained about honkai in GGZ
So... The REAL Honkai are the onions we made along the way?? Seriously though, thank you for making these! As a late comer to the game, your series is an INVALUABLE resource to understanding the game!!!
14:37 All this talk about Herrschers and you didn't mention the Herrscher of Origin, aka Elysia, aka "Miss Pink Anomaly" Other Herrschers are "projections" of the Herrscher of Finality, while Origin has its own "origins" that are unrelated to the Cocoon of Finality And they also hint that whoever has the authority of Origin can potentially "put the crown of Finality" on someone - basically that would be the alternative way (other than getting all Herrscher Cores) for Kiana to become an artificial Herrscher of Finality
I did not mention Origin because I am a bit confused about it, and I already have a whole video talking about her. While Previous Chapters imply that Origin is separate from Finality, the recent chapters show that it's not actually the case. I always saw Origin on the same level as Finality, but Ch 34 implies that Origin is also one of Finality's projections, but it's free from it's control because it appeared as an accident. I'm waiting for Ch 35 to hopefully shed more light on Origin before addressing it again in a video.
@@HomuLabs When Tesla talked about the Herrschers being "projection of Finality", I believe she talked about the "conventional" 12, not counting the Origin I do still believe it's related to Finality somehow, but more because of their "natures" and not, well, their "origins"
In Vill-V's letter to Elysia that Mei hears at the end of Act 2 of Chapter 34, Vill-V specifically mentions that Elysia returned to the Cocoon. That implies that she was actually part of it. That's why I am a bit confused rn.
@@HomuLabs Ah yes, I remember that now That reminds me tho: so what exactly is that "train station"? The first time, Bronya had to hack through Project Stigma's "Mainnet" so Mei could enter it, but the second time the "space" approached where Mei stood (according to Durandal)
So at the end of this video, there is a connection with HSR lore? And in this case, the Aeon Terminus, one who moves backwards in time presiding over the Path of Finality? This sounds interesting to me.
I honestly think there will be a certain point where all Mihoyo games combine into one, like all the MCs just band together to fight Finality or something. Like all the games just build up to one storyline and ending.
After the release/official announcement and 1st cbt of star rail, i immediately thought of Su in the manga that he met one of the Aeons there when he transcends to that higher dimension. And given with the current info we on hi3 lore plus the changing of the term on the "End" to "Finality" that somehow matched with the description of the Aeon Terminus, i think its becoming more closer to become canon too, unless hoyo releases a different info/lore with the future updates that will debunked this theory of mind 😅😅😅
i'm a bit confused about what you said with "There are no Herrscher Persona's in the current era" i can understand the part with Mei's stigma, "Seele" and Anna losing control over herself and so on. But what about Senti and the HoC? They are freshly new created persona's and their own being. not from a stigma or something like that.
@@HomuLabs hm at this point...what could even be defined as "Herrscher Persona" anymore? Humans getting taken over? Not anymore, human minds getting twisted? Nope. Personas that seemed to be Herrscher Personas? Nope...will of stigma thingies, new persona existence in a body? Nope, feather...persona without a body? Nope, embodiements of concepts. Thank you for the explanations tho. I can get behind them but i miss the a bit simpler honkai times. As much as things can be pieced together with all kind of explanations, a lot of what happens in the story now feels like it was initially never planned to turn out this way but now get pushed into this because they are rushing forward and come up with explanations as they go. Your videos are great tho, they help a lot with understanding all this recent lore dumps. Keep up the great work! The honkai story just feels very messy to me atm and got exhausting to follow. So many things being turned around. It feels rushed and stretched at the same time and a lot makes me feel they push it forward like this to make the way ready to transition into honkai star rail
What I previously thought was Senti say that because it's her way to appear outside Fu Hua since Fu Hua doing that as well before. And then again Fenghuang Down is created from Previous Era HoS core so she kinda related to that hmm
Chapter 25 explains it pretty well. Both HoV and Kiana are continuations of Sirin's persona. While Kiana is her desire for motherly love and to live a normal life, HoV is her burning passion for revenge against humans.
Think HK3 is going to the same path Tales of Berseria went, specially with Kiana becoming Finality. And omg I gonna cry T_T Btw, great vid and great explanation.
Strangely enough, I always thought of Finality as an Apothesis, and that whatever it is is resetting events to achieve it's ideal outcome, but we're only seeing parts of said events, given how many bubble universes are I would've believed that we're just 1 of millions of simulations trying to reach that ending At least, that's all I ever had thought until I saw this
Awesome video as always! Finally, I got answers to my questions that I wondered about from your previous video :D And what about the Sea of quanta? Does it exist because it can remove the bubbles that's created as a sideeffect when the samsara is resets? Until now I thought that our world could sinks in the Sea of quanta, but with the samsara, it lost it's meaning.
For Herrscher persona thingy, how about Kiana's HoV persona, HoDomination, and HoC? Especially HoD seems "inject" people and take their identity and HoC have no form at all but personality in Current Era?
Both Kiana and HoV are continuations of Sirin's persona. While Kiana is her desire for motherly love and a normal life, HoV is her burning hatred and desire for revenge against humanity. HoD and HoC are a bit hard to classify since they do not have a human host. They are both beings born inside the Cocoon of Finality. HoD is an Eldritch Imaginary Construct, while HoC seems to be a sentient virus. They seem to represent the concepts they have authority over since one was obsessed with Domination and the other with Corruption. You can see them as " herrscher personas" if you wish, but they are an anomaly that is hard to categorize since they function differently from previously known Herrscher that always had a human host.
I honestly wonder if "Terraforming" or "Assimilation" would have been better analogies than "hug" Cause as pointed out in the video, people take the hug analogy to literally.
If that's the case, then is the message that unity isn't always desirable? Our individuality is more important than the collective. And the unity of civilization isn't the end goal, like Finality/Terminus believes. Or is Finality in the right? Also, how does this affect Genshin? People long theorised that Genshin takes place in the Sea of Quanta, though it's unconfirmed. But if the sea ISN'T failed timelines/universes, then what's going on there? Could there be multiple imaginary trees? Is Irminsul a different form of tree? It certainly doesn't function like the Imaginary tree, but there ARE similarities. Irminsul does seem to be keeping Teyvat 'together', so...
When people say that Teyvat is a bubble universe in the Sea of Quanta, they refer to the fact that the world has very similar functionalities with a bubble universe held together by an Ether Anchor. Anyway, I don't think that what happens in HI3 will ever directly affect Genshin. The two games seem to share similar ideas and concepts, but each does it's own interpretation on them.
@HomuLabs from the narrative perspective, Genshin's story is more of a refined/solid version of Honkai's core story, just a different universe/parallel world, with its own terms/settings/rules. Though it's due to being released later, plus one of the writers was in charge of Sumeru storyline, likely future chapters moving forward. Genshin was initially titled Honkai Chronicle, but later on, recieved its current title from fans' suggestion. From narrative perspective, Nathlan chapter might be based on Everlasting Flames/Thus Spoke Apocalypse, taking into account Pyro vision users, their ambitions are tied to family figures. This parallels Himeko's backstory, both Honkai and Star Rail, since their activities are linked to their respective fathers. Snezhnaya chapter might be based on Elysian Realm/To the Flawless, since the Fatui Harbringers are partly counterparts/parallel of the Flamechasers.
I'm gonna be honest, i think Terminus is just a Cocoon of Finality from another world, which managed to gain Sentience, but its power over Finality likely made it embrace the ideals of the concept of Finality in all its forms(the ideas given by all the characters and more) and thus ascended into the Aeon of Finality. This might not be a possibility, but with its connection to the Imaginary Tree and access to powers probably put a CoF as a candidate
@@The_Toxic_Fool it's the title of the game, cause it's a continuation from HI3. You don't see people referencing or talking about Genshin inside the GI, do you? It's the same concept
@@The_Toxic_Fool well, we did learn that the Honkai has the ability to take many forms and variations, be it under different names, looks, etc. So technically, it is fully possible that the Honkai is a threat in the larger universe of HSR, but only so few people have the complete information to know that the Honkai is capable of those forms and thus no one has connected all the events that the Honkai has taken part in, rather chalking it up to multiple different alien races that coincidentally have pretty similar methods, which wouldn't worry anyone cause it's an entire universe, so they would be more worried if things like this didnt happen
@@The_Toxic_Fool no, Aeons and Herrschers are different. Aeons are entities that have ascended into godhood by "merging" with a Path. You're sort of right about them being batteries, but it's more complicated cause that's only the case when comparing them to the physical universe. If we talk about conceptually, their Paths would be the actual batteries, with each Aeon being more like a wire, connecting the Path to their followers. Herrschers don't follow this, as all but one of them, Herrscher of Finality, are merely fragments of Finality. So already, the power structure is different. Herrschers also aren't ascended through following any sort of emotion or ambition. Rather, they would need to have hatred for humanity, desire for revenge and the ambition to change the world. Then, they need a large concentration of Honkai energy (Sirin being pumped full of it and also absorbing it from Honkai reactors, Nagazora, etc), a focus point for a Honkai Core to manifest and an available power they can claim(Finality controls this I'm pretty sure, but it can be hijacked). Of course there will be changes depending on the Herrscher in question, but we more or less know how a Herrscher should be created. So no, very different
@@The_Toxic_Fool Honkai appears on individual worlds, creating barriers of Imaginary Energy around the entire star system to ensure there's no outside influence, for the most part. So even if Aeons can easily kill Herrschers, they aren't able to because of their own limits. It's the same thing as why Aeons don't just wage cataclysmic wars for eternity and use their abilities to destroy the universe. They can, but are being stopped. They aren't powerful enough to destroy the Imaginary Tree, cause power levels, so that means the restrictions of the Imaginary Tree, finite and infinite energy, is still placed on them. And since Honkai is a "trial" for the worlds of the Imaginary Tree, it will give power to the Cocoon of Finality of that star system, to ensure the barrier doesn't fall. So to summarise, just think of every entity in the Honkaiverse being unable to interfere because the Imaginary Tree is interfering to ensure everything goes smoothly
Out of curiosity I have to wonder, if everything failed and Finality ended up beating the Current Era, you think Elysia's tampering would still be in play to let the Herrschers of the next cycle have the chance to break free, or do you think things would go back to how they were in the Previous Era, with Honkai in complete control?
Elysia, passed on the powers and Authority of Origin to Mei, at the end of the Elysium Everlasting/Realm. If the CE started losing Mei, would then repeat Elysia's sacrifice and leave behind her own version of the Realm for the Future Era of Herrschers and Humans. Which humorously would likely include memories of the Elysian Realm's cast given how important they were to her.
@@Heartrose7e don't know how exactly Elysia sacrificed herself. But she gave a backdoor for Prometheus, who later became the Will of Honkai in CE, who gave herrschers 'free will' and broke them of the so-called personas. Therefore, i doubt MEI would need to sacrifice herself like Elysia, although again, we don't know how.
Tfw we thought we finally were figuring things out at the end of Otto's chapters....and we find out we know about as much as we did from Chapter 7 @w@ How these writers don't go insane, i will never figure out
Later Edit: As some people have pointed out, I want to clarify some things that I worded very wrong and didn't properly explain. There ARE Herrscher Personas in the Current Era, as in beings born from Honkai inside people that are Herrscher Hosts. Some examples of that would be Welt Joyce and Senti. The difference from PE is that Finality has no control over them and they have their own free will. They are not slaves of Honkai going rampage and destroying everything like in the previous Samsara. There is also the Herrscher of Domination and the Herrscher of Corruption, who are beings born inside the Coccon of Finality, but they do not have a human host. They are more so the direct incarnation of their Authority and the Concept they rule over. I apologize if this caused confusion.
Hello everyone! I wish to share with you a few words regarding my state of mind when making this video. While I'm happy with how it turned out, this was one of my hardest videos to make. I think that I rewrote the script at least 4 times before having the courage to record it. I took the conscious decision of avoiding providing a definitive interpretation of the concept of Honkai. With the information we have now, people could definitively reduce the concept to a couple of words that are fairly reasonable to understand, I wanted to present all the layers of the concept separately. I felt like this approach might disappoint some people due to the absurdity of the concept from a normal player's perspective. Does it have to be so complicated? No. That's why I feel like I explained everything and nothing at the same time. But, to be completely honest, I prefer this open-ended interpretation much more. Just like in the game, I don't want to trap "Honkai" in a single universal explanation, and I feel like letting it be this concept that can be interpreted in an endless number of ways is much more fitting. Thanks and have a great weekend!
Kinda... yes. Finality is just a name given to a higher existence in the Imaginary Tree by PE. Dr. MEI theorizes that this higher existence is actually another civilization that evolve though countless aeons, and the individuals merged into a collective cosmic consciousness. Given how Project Stigma also wants to create something similar, and the lines of text from Ch 31EX when Gray Serpent described the Spiritual Adam, it's safe to assume that the next step in our evolution as civilization is literally to become a single consciousness.
I agree with it doesnt have to be so complicated, one of the flaws in this story that i have seen echoed through many people in the community mihoyo goes overboard with the deep philoshpical talks and analogies a bit too much(ch33 is the worst offender imo) and leaves some stuff like the honkai kinda up to ur interuptation while giving u lore to build on, i myself dont mind it this way but i get why its not a good thing to do for general writing from a normal player's prespective who doesnt want a phd in honkai lore.
@@BerserkGlazer200 ^^"
@@HomuLabs but what's aeons ?
There's something I've been meaning to ask you, as you're the closest to a lore expert on HI3 I follow.
I was playing getting Elysium Realm Chapter 1 to 100% when I saw a conversation between sim SAKURA and EDEN. SAKURA was asking EDEN if she knew where Jizo Mitama(the Key of Corruption) was as she wanted to use it, but Eden had never heard of such a divine key.
Afaik, the only people who should know about Jizo Mitama are Higokumaru and Yae Sakura as they were in the Black Box/Sakura Samsara Stigma Space. And even then that only happened in CE, over 500 years after Yae Sakura got sealed in the Black Box. Literal no one else should know about it, especially anyone from PE or the ER sims.
How does ER SAKURA know about it? Did Yae Sakura(as a reincarnation of SAKURA) have her memories get sent to SAKURA somehow? Did their consciousness/souls synchronize or something?
Love the fact that the relationship between honkai and humanity and the entire motive of this multi-year plot csn b interpreted as a fanfic writer getting mad at a author for not doing what they want so they launch multiple nuclear missles towards said author's home to retailiate.
Funny how that's how Chinese fanbase has become, thankfully, they cannot nuke their own country or they'd die.
PLEASE
IM FUCKING DYING
@@aponia8604 please what exactly?
@@kyarumomochi51466years is a rush?
One interesting interpretation I've seen about Finality/Honkai is that much of what it does to humanity as part of its "embrace" (spawning monsters, causing disasters, making Herrschers, etc.) is actually by accident. As you explained, Honkai is some kind of weird higher/abstract form of existence that isn't compatible with humanity, and its attempts to "embrace" might cause so much destruction and suffering because it just doesn't know how to do so "correctly" in a way that gets its desired result. It's a bit like how some people end up accidentally killing their pets by feeding them things which are okay to humans but lethal poison to other animals.
That same interpretation also suggested that Finality is basically doing the abstract-higher-god equivalent of reloading a checkpoint each time it destroys humanity. It tries to "embrace" us, screws up, then reloads the 50000 year save file and tries again and again until it can get things right.
I think "embrace" more like "absorb" by turning humanity into something like them
cringe tf idiotic -_-
An... interesting concept? Honestly would like to see a fanfic of that idea.
7:49
This gets me thinking: I've always got the lingering feeling that the HI3's story - even with all the grand delivery and emotional torque it brings - is not always what the writers actually wanted to write
Like how we got multiple retcons, and a number of them were because of factors beyond their control (like, you know, "no Chinese historical characters" or "no horny/gay")
So could this whole thing ("Honkai wants to be the protagonist and free from anyone's directions") be a metaphor to that? As well as the saying "we'll end this story the way we always wanted" (Himeko, Kiana) and "this beautiful story deserves a perfect ending" (Elysia)
"is not always what the writers actually wanted to write"
i"ve seen long time ago that's also the problem that mihoyo has - too many writers. I also saw thats the problem in their previous game GGZ. But im not too sure since i just saw one comment long time ago in one of the GGZ videos here in yt.
If only Mihoyo were free from CCP and it's clutches 😔
Ah yes creativity getting shaft by the censorship is a good analogy here for the writers vs CCP strict laws
They are being told from higher up to convolute the story on purpose so you get more story equals more money more characters. This was most likely not how the story was intended but it changes if the game becomes successful hence the convoluted plot twists.
It's a bit of a stretch. Retcons are... Pretty common, especially considering how Honkai was primarily a game and not a book and hence the writers probably didn't think it through, or finished writing the story yet, unlike books or movies where you can just rewrite parts of the story BEFORE readers read it
2:49
If we go by that definition... theoretically, it's possible that humanity might become "advanced" enough to learn the true nature and purpose of Honkai's "embrace" and thus could prepare themselves for it
But then, the Honkai would probably have to make countless samsara until a human civilization that can "fit" appeared
Somebody in ch. 32 mentioned that the ruins in New Atra is actually around 200K years old, i.e from around 3 samsaras before the present
From what I understood, it's more that it was from 200k years before Dr. MEI's Era... so if anything it's more like it's saying the Samsara before the Previous Era lasted 200k years compared to Current Era's 50k.
And it's likely this is the intention since the CE is more aware of Honkai and prepared than the Previous Era (seemingly) was, meaning the true change came from their interferance with how fast the next Era learns.
@@TheGameRuler
No, Fu Hua once referred to a 50K year era before hers when talking about samsara with Kevin
He also said that all the samsara lasted 50K years
The New Atra ruins being 200K years old is in separate conversation, and it didn't involve those 2 chars
@@IAmDAN004 Hm, if so then my bad
I love the concept of honkai as a fiction. If that was the case, i cannot wait for herrscher of omegaverse, herrscher of shonen and herrscher of furry to appear
There’s also the Herrscher Of Lust, but we ain’t gonna talk about it.
@@uzumazin5099 herracher of "who asked" XD
@@Jamelon
Herrscher Of "L + Ratio"! XDXDXDXD
@@uzumazin5099 that's a real thing ?
@@ShiraFuyu2022
Yes. TLDR: She's a rape victim turned rapist.
Interesting but I disagree. The first one to say the honkai wants to "embrace" humanity was Elysia, and she wouldn't have used analogies. Also, as the first Herrscher ever, she's most attuned to what the Honkai really wants to do than anyone else. She never talked about a test or forcing humanity to evolve. That's why I think the honkai is not interested in any of that. The honkai just wants to find someone it can interact with, some form of companionship, that's what "embracing" really means. The reason the honkai's incursion on Earth has had such disastrous consequences for humanity is simply because the honkai and humans are pretty incompatible, but the honkai never meant to be hostile.
In any case, I think this is gonna become more clear when Kiana becomes Finality. I think at that moment she's gonna learn the honkai's true intentions and I think it's gonna be pretty surprising for those who still think the honkai deliberately tried to harm humanity.
Was it really Elysia? Where? I didn't see her talking about it in ch. 34
The first time I heard the word "embrace" was during Tesla's talk in that chapter
And as I see you're responding to Homulabs' use of "test" or "wanting humanity to evolve": that's him explaining what the Honkai is from each "layer", and he himself has said that its true intentions is incomprehensible to humanity and that it only acts on "instinct" or "nature"
@@IAmDAN004
Ely said that in chapter 31 if I remember correctly (could be in ER though). And adult Ai-chan said the same thing in chapter 33.
Tesla doesn't count because she's just a human scientist and has no special insight on the Honkai. Ely's take on the Honkai is much more trustworthy because she's a Herrscher with a special connection to the Honkai. And Ai-chan can see the future so she also has special insight that Tesla doesn't have.
@@1idd0kun
I don't remember Ai-chan ever talking about the nature of Honkai there
I only remembered her talking to Durandal and Sushang about trying to go back to earth by "walking"
@@IAmDAN004
Ai-chan told Durandal this:
Ai-chan: "For humans, the end result is quite painful, but it's not because they're being seen as insignificant. It's quite the opposite. It's because the honkai wishes to embrace us and loves everyone of us in a way that is too much for us."
This is my translation of Ai-chan's dialog in Chinese. The official translation could be a bit different (I don't play on GLB so I don't know). It shouldn't be too different though.
@@1idd0kun
Just checked that line, Ai-chan said "that original force" instead of "Honkai"
And in the next sentence she said "Origin betrayed Finality"
The rest are right tho
10:57
In a way, Honkai can be seen as the physical embodiment of the concept of "entropy": that given enough time, everything will devolve/degrade/erode/(any other kind of "negative change") into incomprehensible chaos
"Honkai" in this case can be seen as the thing behind this law of "entropy"
Thus, "Finality" (in both literal meaning of its name and what it's represented as a concept here) is indeed related to Honkai
Hoyo really crafted lore so deep it take awesome explanations like these. thanks again Homu!
5:50
So Otto only saw the "side effect/wastes" of the function of Finality (i.e resetting the world) and thought that that's what happens to the world that fails its "test"
In this manner, those bubble universes are akin to the "pruned timelines" in Fate Grand Order - when the "world" decides that a certain parallel timeline can no longer "advance" in a meaningful manner, it gets "pruned" and stuck in time
Though, I think it'd be better for you to stress that Finality's Samsara doesn't reset "time", but rather "civilization"
"The Honkai Onion" that's something imma be using to explain it now ahahah
The Honkai Onion is great!
I knew it ! Shrek is the answer everything has layers like onions !
Before starting the video i’d like to say thank you for all your videos 🙏 i play honkai since 2018 and i was kinda lost sometimes, as certain aspects of the story are a little tricky to understand 😅 buts your channel helps a lot !
Soon I will compare your understanding with mine and draw conclusions, it will be cool. Thank you for giving a different angle of view on honkai, so it's easier to notice what you missed.
Honkai's story does feel like hotpot of several concepts.it's like the writers don't know how to tackle it. Or maybe they are trying to make it needlessly complex although that doesn't really have much merit since on games players usually skip the dialogue and go straight to playing the game. I think stories like this will make more sense if made as an anime.
oh dont start with an anime. at least start with a book of origins
No u just don’t understand
@@Zombina638 can you give me TL:DR of the story
@@august_619 dont need to. Obv y didnt
@@Zombina638 ??
7:41
Fun fact: there are a few times where "the writer and his story" as a form of saying (i.e "the story and its characters are at the mercy of their author") is used in Honkai
There was one time in Alien Space comic where Ryusuke attacks Welt from a higher dimension and Welt can't do anything about it, and Ryusuke likens himself to a writer
I think Otto in the game uses that kind of saying too, though I forgot the context
Its apparent Genshin runs on the same concept/idea, being part of the Honkai multiverse. Narratives/fiction is important in Genshin, as seen in the books and Scaramouche's interlude chapter. Even if a concept/important figure was erased from the Irminsul, only perception/written records/books are altered, not actual physical events and end results, akin to Schrodinger cat theory. However, if the true story was hidden through vague enough metaphors/fairy tales/out of the Irminsul reach, it won't be erased.
The traveller's role in Teyvat is the equivalent of several aspects in Honkai; Elysia - being the key chance for Teyvat to break out of the ongoing samsara/sealed fate, Project Ember - preserving true knowledge from the previous era to be used for the future, Divine Keys - their ability to use the weaker version of the Archon's elemental abilities similar to Key of Blankness.
Yep! That's very true, but do you know the reference of the Samsara? My guess is the political samsaras in China that have continued for 3000 years or so.
Come back and try again when you find a single honkai-related disaster in genshin.
@@Soundwave1900 what does that have to do with the og comment
@@phis7567 "genshin is a part of honkai multiverse".
@@Soundwave1900 i thought it was confirmed that hsr hi3 and gi r in the same universe
Wow. Once you understand Honkai, the depth and writing for Elysia just enchances.
As the 1st herrscher that loved all of humanity and actually did embrace humanity as much as she could.
Gone but not forgotten. RIP Elysia.
This Finality thing just sounds like some kinda collective conscience. Humans tend to be more individualistic and these two ideas will naturally clash. I like how Hoyoverse plays around with many concepts in interesting and thought provoking ways that are open to interpretation.
love your lore vids! real good quality and your breakdowns are easy to follow along with despite exploring some real heavy and complicated concepts. I also appreciate that you take the time to explain the origin of all these separate ideas and themes, like which aspects are influenced by philosophy vs sci fi, etc. these are such interesting combinations and I wonder how the writers come up with it honestly! any plans to explore Prometheus' role in the story more thoroughly in a future vid? I don't quite get the whole deal with her and/or the will of the honkai.
Thank you! I might do a dedicated video on PROMETHEUS in the future.
I just rewatched your video on Elysia's sacrifice last night and in it you mentioned you'd talk about the Honkai/Finality in a further video... How lucky that today is the day! You truly do an incredible job with these video essays. Thanks for your effort combing the lore so that we can understand it! Honkai is starting to feel a lot like Dark Souls with how open-ended its lore is which is great but also monstrous to grasp.
Finally got around to watching this and I have to say, it's really refreshing to see multiple ideas presented at once, debated for and against equally and taken into account seriously, using real information and not just interpretation (where it isn't necessary).
Really cool. While miHoYo definitely is happy to retcon to make way for their newer version of the story, I'm glad there are people like you who clean stuff up in their own way, so that many others can take all this information in.
6:30 in a technical sense tho herrschers are fundamentally abstract concepts that's why they are embodiments of "laws" in the first place, not that it matters since it was proven herrschers can also wield multiple laws such as kiana and sirins case or HoC. but the first to prove this was actually mei's herrscher persona in nagazora she explained that herrschers are born consciousness separate from the person meaning "herrschers" are born persona's without a body not constraint by their reality, this was also proven when herrschers like welt could exist without a form and could reform his physical existence and so is bronya. another case is the 3rd key and raven, she says the key has a mind of it's own and she speaks to it from time to time since herrschers are not bound by the physicality of reality they should not be constraint by the aspects of physics in general or "concept of space-time" described by ideas as herrschers can fundamentally become almost anything as they are made of ideas, also mei proved it in chapter 34 after breaking free from the cage called "dreams" that grey serpeant even mentioned that herrschers are made of "pure concepts" implying they are imaginary forms that had no physicality to begin with simply quoting aristotles fundamental reasoning on "universal concepts" and transcendial concepts such as "love", so in a sense they are also not constraint by realities and could fundamentally transcend them. more in that aspect relating to what you said about plato funnily enough, even la nina from the web novel implied that they are the law they are the transcendial concepts, they embody the entirety of the bubble universe and it's the higher dimensional concepts itself. before durandal integrated with and inverted the the bubble universe inside her.
well compared to herrschers from PE they are fundamentally different concepts but of the same nature. both are abstract in nature and shape all of reality they encompass. but the real interesting part is sirin, who could fundamentally use all authorities, creating an imaginary space/or fictional narrative like you said is very easy for her if she ever knew how to use them. she was also considered the biggest threat in CE.
Holy shit I LOVE this lore video to bits!! I would totally not have liked it nearly as much if you only went with one explanation on what honkai is. I know MiHoYo's love for cosmic horror since ggz so I totally accept this explanation of the honkai(or rather finality) being this horrific incomprehensible unknown that humanity is too wet behind the ears to understand.
You did a phenomenal job! Liked!
Even though i have played this game for more than a year now and have caught up to the latest chapters I wouldn’t dare to answer the question about what is Honkai lol , the interpretation that I had liked the most was the Otto one in chapter 17, I don’t know how many times you had to re read the mind numbing lore from chapter 31ex to the latest chapter to make this video but you did a very good job and thank you for it !
15:17
I don't think you're looking at it completely right
First off, there was the HOV persona inside Kiana that was genuine - otherwise, Elysia wouldn't mention her among the other "fallen Herrschers"
(Then there's HOS, though she's also kind of an outlier in her own way)
Then on the topic of "fallen Herrschers", Elysia and Mei did note that they all "fell" because of human vices and flaws. The fact that the Honkai can still use emotional manipulations (i.e sweet tempting words and the like) to bring them under its will is what scares me more, tbh
And about Ana... what is truly going on inside her head would forever be a mystery, although she does mention that she's losing her memories bit by bit and she fears that she'll be losing her mind (which did happen)
@@elysainempire4628
But she is separate enough from Kiana to be considered a different person
@@elysainempire4628
But the fact that Elysia and Mei talked about her separately from Kiana means that she is indeed a Herrscher persona (or more influenced by Honkai than Kiana is)
10:26
Excuse me while I'll being philosophical for a moment
When a kind of being is incomprehensible to humanity but is viewed as "lower" than them, we tend to call them "animals"
But when a kind of being is incomprehensible to humanity and is viewed as "higher" than them, we call them... force of nature? Phenomena?
And the way humanity assign qualities like "embrace", "love" or any other kind of human "narrative" to those "incomprehensible higher beings" is how we got the "gods" of old myths like in Greek, Egypt or even Mesopotamia
Awesome video as always! Keep up the great work!
Man.. holy moly!
I want to express my highest gratitude to Homu Lab for giving me more understanding about the lores.
Thank you!
Mihoyo-verse on their way to create a lore so confusing that rivals kingdom hearts
absolutely fantastic explanation of such a complex topic! as a platonic forms lover, i feel you truly did that explanation justice 😊
Great video. Sad I only just got to it, but I really appreciate your approach to the story as interpretations and with less finality(ha) which is a problem I've seen with many others trying to interpret it confidently and be so wrong. I had pages and pages of notes myself, and it's great to see someone compile all the information the game gives us well in an open explanation. Thanks!
PHENOMENAL VIDEO!
Dude, this was just chef's kiss
It should also be noted that Anna was a Scheriac, and would supposedly also have the Scheriac stigma. At the time her stigma would have been personifying as Hare, herself an anti Herrsherr weapon of sorts. That, coupled with understanding she could be running into Owl (who she loved but betrayed) would have been easily enough to shake her personality to it's core. Also, Herrsherrs seem to arise mostly from individuals who are in very compromised situations for a lack of a better word. Sirin was put through extremely dehumanizing experiments when her eruption occurred, and Windy was likewise crippled by the experiment that put the core of desire in her leg. People under extreme stress tend to lash out, regardless of if they regret it later or not, and if the will in the core is simply an amplified will of the user, that moment might act as a resounding sound in an echo chamber. Most often Hersherrs seem to become most aggressive right at a moment of perceived betrayal. Though I think this is mostly in support of your arguments.
Thank you so much for doing this, the recent chapters have been so confusing
Thanks for breaking it down, been looking for a way to bring all the rationalizations together. I particularly like the one in which Finality is a higher dimension civilization looking to eat us, lol! It actually makes sense since they genuinely want to absorb us but need to break us down repeatedly until we are digestible I mean evolved enough to be on equal standing with them. Of course that would mean enriching their collective with our own so in a way we are food. It also makes sense that they would use concepts we can comprehend in an effort to communicate their will.
HOWEVER, by forcibly mutating another lifeform towards it's ultimate evolution I have to wonder if it's not also out of self-preservation as a different outcome of our Finality could be toxic to them and spread like an infection if we were to be left alone, like a tumor on the imaginary tree.
Thanks so much for this. I started the game during chapter 32 and did it to get Raiden Mei, and I was so lost. I’m slowly piecing it together but this helped a lot. I found your channel a few weeks ago through the Genshin/Honkai video you made a while back.
Wow... Im so glad we have you to unravel all these concepts to us. Homu - Profesor of Honkaiology 🌟💚🍾
We're all blessed by your content you know that right? 😉👍
this last couple chapter makes my mind work so hard about what is happening now im understand even though i should not take some explanation "literally"
I just found you and I almost don't know anything about Honkai Impact 3rd (I'm playing Genshin).
Love your way of explaining things that even I can (kinda) understand.
The fact that the game needed so many years to finally give players some clues about its world structure etc. makes me feel a bit hopeless for the world of Teyvat lol.
But anyways, great video and fun editing, I enjoyed it a lot.^^
From the recent Archon quests, and some important world quests, Teyvat seems to run under the same laws as Honkai world, just different presentation and terms, but core concepts still the same.
Great explanation as always!
You know this all rings a bit familiar to the Marathon series, an old Bungie game, it too had an abstract plot that's hard to grasp but once you think about it for a while it makes complete sense (I say as people are still trying to decipher Marathon Infinity 25 years later). It also has fourth wall breaking themes that you don't notice till you squint at it. Marathon had the theme of the player being a game's destiny, and Honkai has the theme of an author being a piece of fiction's god.
However, I feel like the biggest thing is the connection is both games' connections to future games. The Halo games were originally suppose to be apart of the Marathon universe to the point where the logo is everywhere, and Destiny has one or two lines of direct connections. Genshin was suppose to have a direct line about the Honkai, seen in the cbt, most of the Archons look like Honkai characters, and Honkai Star Rail has Welt. Also Terminus and Istaroth I guess, if you squint, I mean marathon 2 almost had the Flood.
I'm hesitant to say that Hoyoverse were inspired by Bungie because Marathon is an obscure af game that only recently got a spotlight shined on it thanks to Mandaloregaming.
heh maybe it just a coincidence for a ninche trending thing.
Computer Sciences tries make "Abstraction" be something solid/real by translate/simplify and concentrate many trivial subjects to desired result/subject. This is something in pratice for more than 50 years by IBM. Also used in Asimov's fictions.
Some Computer languages such C++ and Java have the "abstract" method to declare a volatile interface into memory/register, which render in a method which changes acordenly users (or code) interaction.
Artificil Inteligente is made of Abstrations, Imaginary Numbers (I know as "Numeros Nebulosos") and probabilistics.
With this many common references is way impossible to a sci-fi heavily made on top technologies don't* touch such terms and narrative models/methods
Welp, also in arts, "Abstract" was made well popular in 19th century, and I made a bold "made popular" since Christians, Greeks, Egyptians and Chineases do made use of "Abstract" & "Open to view's Interpretation" way before 10th century
17:20 if you look up herrscher of finality stigmata set you'll find one of the symbols to be almost the same
Nice details Onion impact 3rd :)
Even better, I just checked that the Final Crater was called Terminus Crater in CN translation.
5:06
So from this intepretation, Honkai is like Anti-Spiral from Gurren Lagann - combined will from several galaxies that forms an ethereal body of astronomical proportions
And Spiritual Adam can be likened to it as well
sorta of, peharps Anti-Spiral is a very high dimentsion being, it doesn't want to evolve any further, so it freeze itselft and want to prevent any other race reach their evolution/dimension level because the multiverse is limited and cannot handle too many lives/energy
Big thanks to u for this piece of content and thanks to all of the story writers in mihoyo who made this Wonderful story.
I didn't imagine to find a story that is this deep in a gatcha game.
Thank you for this as I was also kinda confused in the last chapters. At first I thought honkai or the Herrscher of Finality just destroyed the civilization and humanity just flourished again after that, but it actually resets. Which gives more understanding as to why the history kinda reflects ours ( or even the previous era).
That gave me a theory of sort that maybe because of the reset why there are two versions of Mei and Himeko and maybe because Kevin, Su and Fu hua survived, we don't get a version of them in the current era. And Kiana bacame kinda like the Kevin to Mei in the current era. Its just my theory though.
Another thing also that it this could also explain about the Sky people in AHPO as Void Archives said that they pose a greater threat as they seek Honkai energy. Maybe the Finality's real reason was to help humanity against such threat like the Sky People.
Anyway thanks for this as this really help the community to understand the honkai lore. Keep up the good work
thank you always for this you made me understand about honkai very easily fr
17:11
I heard that the "Paths" are supposed to be the "ways" that each Aeon left behind as they expand in power/present their power in some way, and different playable characters follow those different "paths" and they become a basis on their gameplay mechanics (CMIIW)
And so far, I don't think there's anyone who has the "Path of Finality" listed on their profile yet
Paths are like classes in RPG.
Preservation are Knights
Abduance are healers
Destruction are Thief
Hunt are Warriors
Erudition are mages
Harmony are enchanters
Nihility are debuffers
@@okularnik125 I can understand most of that, but how is destruction thief??? None of the current character exhibits in any way a thief-like playstyle. They aren’t known for speed, they don’t steal items, and they don’t disable the enemies. If anything, they’re a bruiser or dark knight archetype. MC has a blend of aoe and single target, Arlan spends hp for high power attacks, Clara dishes out hits for taking hits, and Hook is a similar vein to MC.
@@EXL72 Hunt is thief. I mistyped them
Aww... so I can't get a hug from the manifestation of a concept incomprehensible to my own mind ;c ?
I mean... you can... if you think about it.
@@HomuLabs But then won't that make it comprehensible ?
As long as it's only in your imagination, not really.
All hail Tunality!
I personally don't believe the herrscher persona thing to be a retcon, because of the fact that it was called will of stigma; Stigma were exclusive to herrschers until Dr. MEI and otto both recreated. It was just given a different name.
Really like the choice to have an open-ended interpretation; I think it's very fitting, so kudos to you.
I said retcon in the sense that they probably had a different idea with it initially, not because it doesn't fit. As I mentioned in the video, this version fits much better with the current lore and makes sense. In fact, initially I went on a 2 minutes ramble about how this ideas fits the narrative better but I decided to cut it out from the video since I didn't want to make it too long. :))
This is a great video! This summed up my feelings on the subject perfectly. Also, the part concerning the difference between "honkai energy" and the Finality, as well as Honkai energy being "imaginary energy", is explained all the way back in the anti-entropy visual novel.
During Tesla's explanation of Honkai to Welt, she mentions that the scientific name for honkai energy is "imaginary internal energy". This energy is also theorized to be a fundamental part of creation that's related to the process of reality in which the superposition of possibilities collapses into one measurable reality also known as "collapse energy" or in other words "Honkai" energy (for anyone who doesn't know, the word honkai means collapse).
Also, about Terminus, I believe there is quite a bit of evidence now to show a connection between the cocoon and it. Considering this and the way Genshin's Primordial one bears a strong resemblance to the Demiurge it seems as though a lot of the beings responsible for the events in Hoyo's games may actually turn out to have been Aeons all along, at least on the imaginary side of things that is.
Here over a year late seeing if I can glean clues about Acheron and any connections to "Finality" as a concept. You are still undefeated for Honkai lore.
same
You weren't kidding when you said it damaged our brains 😵💫😵💫
after even this long video, i still couldn't comprehend what is honkai actually 😭
Lovecraft cosmic horror we dont understand thats all. Force of "Fiction"
You don't need to understand what it is. Since it doesn't have a definitive meaning. Honkai's meaning is too general (grandscale) and Mihoyo made it like that to make more stories. That's what you need to focus on. In short, it's like milk with a lot of brands but sell the same product. If you know the Fate series it's like that. Thats why it's called Honkaiverse or Hoyoverse
Comparing the Honkai vs. Humanity to a Fandom vs. it's preffered Media is crazy... and yet it's cleared up so much for me
This video did alot of refreshment in my mind, as if alot of stuff came back at me😎😎. THANK YOU VERY MUCH👌.
I just recently play HSR but immediately curious of its lore. While I'm not playing HI3, I read the comic for source for my lore-craving. Honkai universe is indeed a well written story.
What intrigued me is that, IMO giving an "incomprehensible" foundation concept produces numerous great stories. Honkai in Honkai-verse, Will in One Piece, Magic in Fate Series, etc
Wonder if we can put that Aeon thing into Genshin too as, you know, tsaritsa plan to become some kind of finality for genshin world, cause so far seems like genshin lore follow the same system with samsara. But anyway, waiting for chapter 35, can't wait to see how they willd end it and how continue and i hope they will connect SR to Honkai more properly
Unfortunately, I am not that well versed on Genshin's lore to dare attempting such a connection at the moment.
As a Genshin End game player I'd like to try to answer this. In Genshin civilizations get reset a lot faster then 50,000 years and has the Irminsul to help with resetting a civilization. In my opinion Tehvat is an artificial world that was re-engineered by the Descender we know now as Phanes or the Primordial One. Before the arrival of Phanos the world of Tehvat was quite different but the point is it already was its own reality with its own set of rules, etc. Thus why it suffers such massive entropy world wide as the artificial environment Phanos built slowly erodes away, examples of this are found everywhere. The Chasm's black mud, the filth collecting in the roots of the Sacred Sakura, the Maranara in Sumeru. It also explains why the abyssal corruption drives every living citizen of Tehvat into a kind of madness, similar to being controlled by the Will of a Herrsscher.
None of us know what Phanos is or where it came from but clearly it's purpose was to remake the world to study human civilization/evolution. Once humans deviate from its plan they are pruned from the system.
Guili Assembly, Old Mondstadt under Decarabian, Enkanomiya, Gurabad, Sal Vindagnyr and Khaenriah are all examples of failed civilizations due to some 'calamity'...
It's quite possible that Phanes no longer controls this artificial world any longer as the 2nd Descender really rocked the boat.....lol. Now Tehvat is heading towards another Pinnacle in its development and yes I believe the Tsaritsa is attempting to take control of it's authority. The human experimentations taking place under the oversight of the Fatui with their Delusions and harvesting of crystal marrow are seemingly comparable to those carried out by organizations in the world of Honkai Impact 3rd.
One final note on Domains in Genshin. It's unclear who built them but the withered white tree and the exchange of resin for artifacts that seem to represent the 5 aspects of Phanes and its 4 Shades seem to imply that human Ascension is encouraged albeit for the chosen few who have received a Vision. To me this seems like a test of possible candidates in every Era of human civilization like a single format of Honkai. That in itself is worth considering.
@@HomuLabs Its okay. So far both Genshin and Honkai runs parallel in terms of story, just different terms/wordings/narrative presentations. Even if the presentation is different, the core story/outcomes is still the same. Also Genshin's story is still not enough to put the deeper connection.
Gotta say, great video :) Understood quite a lot!... which I'm thankful, because lately the story drags quite a lot x_x, though nothing that can be done about that if the story is finally ending.
Great summary and explanation of what Honkai is and Finality's relation to it! I've been wondering about the grown up Ai and the pseudo time crystal thing as well, can you explain that too?
Yes, I have a video in the works on that.
@@HomuLabs Thanks friend, I'm looking forward to your next videos!
I'd consider it a personal gift, becuse it fits my suggestion way too well XD That said, now I feel entitled to leave the entirety of my conclusions and opinions here, so bear with me.
"Honkai rises with civilization", or "Civilization counterforce", wasn't even really challenged throughout the story until Ch17, where we'd get new insights anyway. At that time with that limited amount of information, it was easy to conclude that Honkai is just a chaotic force, Herrschers are always hostile, and non-hostile Herrschers are made because of Herrscher candidate's willingness to stand up straight (hello, Malkuth). The only thing (again, at the time) that would suggest otherwise was the Seed of Sumeru manga, or specifically, Su reaching the place for the enlightened.
I took an issue with Otto's "Honkai is a test", because no matter how you spin this idea, it returns to the fact that the test has been created with an *intent* , which implies sapience behind the machinations. But what if there's no intent behind Honkai? What if it occurs naturally? Otto's observation is also clouded by the fact that he observed the Honkai with the Will of Honkai pulling the strings, but the Will of Honkai wasn't always there - it only appeared near the end of the last Samsara. For the Previous Era there was no Will of Honkai to try to understand.
Interestingly enough, Otto in his own "Honkai is a test" gives us an answer of what a Honkai could be, if it was not created by a sapient will. It's a clash, an emergent phenomenon, a consequence of the struggle between the Imaginary Tree and the Sea of Quanta that gives birth to something more complex than itself. It'd mean that it's impossible to stop the Honkai without tipping the whole system, and tipping the whole system would be a googol times (10^100) more destructive than any of Otto's or Kevin's plans. Ngl, I like this because it echoes well the real world physics, where from the 4 natural forces (gravity, electromagnetic, weak nuclear, strong nuclear) a great deal more forces and interactions occur that form the world around us. And it pains me to part with this side because Star Rail implies a sapient will behind Finality.
12:28 >Chapter 35 will give us more answers
Ummmm... I feel guilty now. Back then in the suggestion, I typo'd "Chapter 34" instead of "Chapter 35". Because of course there's gonna be more stuff when Kiana takes in the Finality.
Another thing that you'd notice if you observe is that the Samsara is somehow applied only to the living beings, but *not* to the geography. The example of that is the continent of Mu, which has been destroyed by the Herrscher of Earth in the Previous Era, but wasn't "reset into existence" by Finality when moving into the Current Era. We still have the Mariana Trench in there, and the Deep.
I also had the bit about how humans aren't the only one who's subjected to Honkai, but you did touch upon it in the end. So, whenever a sapient race capable of forming civilization is born, it receives a gift of it's own Honkai hourglass that spins around every 1 577 880 000 000 seconds? That's interesting, so I did an interesting calculus that makes it probabilistically impossible for some event we all know did occur, *to* occur.
Let's say the Earth and the Moon in the Honkai universe have existed for as long as they do in reality: that would be 4 billion years. Obviously, the humanity came much later than that (Cambrian explosion happened much later than that), so we can reduce the upper limit, but if we start there with the Moon, and put the Cocoon of Finality at that time, for the time until now it'd make only 80000 Samsaras. Why *only* 80000? Because the gacha's flying chance for humanity to roll Elysia, as calculated by Dr. MEI, is 1 in 100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000. That's no googol, but still a staggerinly bigger number than 80000 (which is, again, a *higher* estimate).
I do feel like I should add more, but can't put into words what to add, so I'll leave it here for now.
I started watching this video with a question on my mind and it got answered on 16:52.
A facinating and really well done video!
Considering how bad the english translation is and how they love to overcomplicate things, this brings some clarity as well being something of a collection of info that makes it easyer to understand some of the more older and spread out stuff.
I really think u did great on this though i would't be suprised if the next chapter throws it all in dissaray again.
I gotta ask man, which character do you relate with the most? Each character definitely has a persona that touches the feelings of one close to said persona
there are also more stuff , like for example that little by little honkai is erasing all world, at a faster rate that new ones are born, as the discussion Su and Kevin had, that there are not many chances left to try defeat the Honkai. Also, last time they tried to make a Finallity Herrscher, they ended up making Null, and poisoning the planet, they stopped the original finnallity but the planet got doomed anyway... and so many more things explained about honkai in GGZ
So... The REAL Honkai are the onions we made along the way?? Seriously though, thank you for making these! As a late comer to the game, your series is an INVALUABLE resource to understanding the game!!!
14:37
All this talk about Herrschers and you didn't mention the Herrscher of Origin, aka Elysia, aka "Miss Pink Anomaly"
Other Herrschers are "projections" of the Herrscher of Finality, while Origin has its own "origins" that are unrelated to the Cocoon of Finality
And they also hint that whoever has the authority of Origin can potentially "put the crown of Finality" on someone - basically that would be the alternative way (other than getting all Herrscher Cores) for Kiana to become an artificial Herrscher of Finality
I did not mention Origin because I am a bit confused about it, and I already have a whole video talking about her. While Previous Chapters imply that Origin is separate from Finality, the recent chapters show that it's not actually the case. I always saw Origin on the same level as Finality, but Ch 34 implies that Origin is also one of Finality's projections, but it's free from it's control because it appeared as an accident. I'm waiting for Ch 35 to hopefully shed more light on Origin before addressing it again in a video.
@@HomuLabs
When Tesla talked about the Herrschers being "projection of Finality", I believe she talked about the "conventional" 12, not counting the Origin
I do still believe it's related to Finality somehow, but more because of their "natures" and not, well, their "origins"
In Vill-V's letter to Elysia that Mei hears at the end of Act 2 of Chapter 34, Vill-V specifically mentions that Elysia returned to the Cocoon. That implies that she was actually part of it. That's why I am a bit confused rn.
@@HomuLabs
Ah yes, I remember that now
That reminds me tho: so what exactly is that "train station"? The first time, Bronya had to hack through Project Stigma's "Mainnet" so Mei could enter it, but the second time the "space" approached where Mei stood (according to Durandal)
So at the end of this video, there is a connection with HSR lore? And in this case, the Aeon Terminus, one who moves backwards in time presiding over the Path of Finality? This sounds interesting to me.
So TLDR; "Honkai is a lot like an onion, it has layers."- Shrek, Herrescher of the Swamp.
"Honkai force humanity evolve" it is exactly what Otto in gun girls z.
I honestly think there will be a certain point where all Mihoyo games combine into one, like all the MCs just band together to fight Finality or something. Like all the games just build up to one storyline and ending.
After the release/official announcement and 1st cbt of star rail, i immediately thought of Su in the manga that he met one of the Aeons there when he transcends to that higher dimension. And given with the current info we on hi3 lore plus the changing of the term on the "End" to "Finality" that somehow matched with the description of the Aeon Terminus, i think its becoming more closer to become canon too, unless hoyo releases a different info/lore with the future updates that will debunked this theory of mind 😅😅😅
Well, so whats kevin is trying to do is what finality wants, a civilization condensed in a one conciousness that gonna be part of it.
i'm a bit confused about what you said with "There are no Herrscher Persona's in the current era" i can understand the part with Mei's stigma, "Seele" and Anna losing control over herself and so on. But what about Senti and the HoC? They are freshly new created persona's and their own being. not from a stigma or something like that.
@@HomuLabs hm at this point...what could even be defined as "Herrscher Persona" anymore? Humans getting taken over? Not anymore, human minds getting twisted? Nope. Personas that seemed to be Herrscher Personas? Nope...will of stigma thingies, new persona existence in a body? Nope, feather...persona without a body? Nope, embodiements of concepts.
Thank you for the explanations tho. I can get behind them but i miss the a bit simpler honkai times. As much as things can be pieced together with all kind of explanations, a lot of what happens in the story now feels like it was initially never planned to turn out this way but now get pushed into this because they are rushing forward and come up with explanations as they go.
Your videos are great tho, they help a lot with understanding all this recent lore dumps. Keep up the great work!
The honkai story just feels very messy to me atm and got exhausting to follow. So many things being turned around.
It feels rushed and stretched at the same time and a lot makes me feel they push it forward like this to make the way ready to transition into honkai star rail
What
I previously thought was Senti say that because it's her way to appear outside Fu Hua since Fu Hua doing that as well before.
And then again Fenghuang Down is created from Previous Era HoS core so she kinda related to that hmm
@@HomuLabs wait so what about HoV then? I always thought that HoV was a persona inside Kiana?
Chapter 25 explains it pretty well. Both HoV and Kiana are continuations of Sirin's persona. While Kiana is her desire for motherly love and to live a normal life, HoV is her burning passion for revenge against humans.
4:11 perhaps the... AEON of Finality?
I finished the video and ho... hohohoho
As Shrek says:"onions has layers"
thank you, for the amazing vid
Honkai Onion😭 Love the analogy btw, your vids are so insightful, my newbie friends are learning and catching alot faster than expected 😁
Think HK3 is going to the same path Tales of Berseria went, specially with Kiana becoming Finality. And omg I gonna cry T_T
Btw, great vid and great explanation.
Strangely enough, I always thought of Finality as an Apothesis, and that whatever it is is resetting events to achieve it's ideal outcome, but we're only seeing parts of said events, given how many bubble universes are I would've believed that we're just 1 of millions of simulations trying to reach that ending
At least, that's all I ever had thought until I saw this
Awesome video as always! Finally, I got answers to my questions that I wondered about from your previous video :D
And what about the Sea of quanta? Does it exist because it can remove the bubbles that's created as a sideeffect when the samsara is resets?
Until now I thought that our world could sinks in the Sea of quanta, but with the samsara, it lost it's meaning.
10:00 this sounds awfully similar to the concept of Evangalion, and considering the inspiration that this game took from it - I ain't surprised...
For Herrscher persona thingy, how about Kiana's HoV persona, HoDomination, and HoC?
Especially HoD seems "inject" people and take their identity and HoC have no form at all but personality in Current Era?
Both Kiana and HoV are continuations of Sirin's persona. While Kiana is her desire for motherly love and a normal life, HoV is her burning hatred and desire for revenge against humanity.
HoD and HoC are a bit hard to classify since they do not have a human host. They are both beings born inside the Cocoon of Finality. HoD is an Eldritch Imaginary Construct, while HoC seems to be a sentient virus. They seem to represent the concepts they have authority over since one was obsessed with Domination and the other with Corruption. You can see them as " herrscher personas" if you wish, but they are an anomaly that is hard to categorize since they function differently from previously known Herrscher that always had a human host.
2:23 I'm walking into that without a thought in my head
well done my guy :)
I hope you make Hare video. Her nature and her power, her past.
yep, and then we have the sky people, star rail will be a huge boost to the lore
Greatly explained tyvm😊
And now the samsara loop explains why Himeko exists both in the current and present era
I honestly wonder if "Terraforming" or "Assimilation" would have been better analogies than "hug" Cause as pointed out in the video, people take the hug analogy to literally.
Good video as always.
If that's the case, then is the message that unity isn't always desirable? Our individuality is more important than the collective. And the unity of civilization isn't the end goal, like Finality/Terminus believes. Or is Finality in the right? Also, how does this affect Genshin? People long theorised that Genshin takes place in the Sea of Quanta, though it's unconfirmed. But if the sea ISN'T failed timelines/universes, then what's going on there? Could there be multiple imaginary trees? Is Irminsul a different form of tree? It certainly doesn't function like the Imaginary tree, but there ARE similarities. Irminsul does seem to be keeping Teyvat 'together', so...
When people say that Teyvat is a bubble universe in the Sea of Quanta, they refer to the fact that the world has very similar functionalities with a bubble universe held together by an Ether Anchor. Anyway, I don't think that what happens in HI3 will ever directly affect Genshin. The two games seem to share similar ideas and concepts, but each does it's own interpretation on them.
@HomuLabs from the narrative perspective, Genshin's story is more of a refined/solid version of Honkai's core story, just a different universe/parallel world, with its own terms/settings/rules. Though it's due to being released later, plus one of the writers was in charge of Sumeru storyline, likely future chapters moving forward. Genshin was initially titled Honkai Chronicle, but later on, recieved its current title from fans' suggestion.
From narrative perspective, Nathlan chapter might be based on Everlasting Flames/Thus Spoke Apocalypse, taking into account Pyro vision users, their ambitions are tied to family figures. This parallels Himeko's backstory, both Honkai and Star Rail, since their activities are linked to their respective fathers. Snezhnaya chapter might be based on Elysian Realm/To the Flawless, since the Fatui Harbringers are partly counterparts/parallel of the Flamechasers.
Thank you for the term "Meatball of Finality"
So honkai is basically the bethren moons from dead space.
I'm gonna be honest, i think Terminus is just a Cocoon of Finality from another world, which managed to gain Sentience, but its power over Finality likely made it embrace the ideals of the concept of Finality in all its forms(the ideas given by all the characters and more) and thus ascended into the Aeon of Finality. This might not be a possibility, but with its connection to the Imaginary Tree and access to powers probably put a CoF as a candidate
@@The_Toxic_Fool it's the title of the game, cause it's a continuation from HI3. You don't see people referencing or talking about Genshin inside the GI, do you? It's the same concept
@@The_Toxic_Fool well, we did learn that the Honkai has the ability to take many forms and variations, be it under different names, looks, etc. So technically, it is fully possible that the Honkai is a threat in the larger universe of HSR, but only so few people have the complete information to know that the Honkai is capable of those forms and thus no one has connected all the events that the Honkai has taken part in, rather chalking it up to multiple different alien races that coincidentally have pretty similar methods, which wouldn't worry anyone cause it's an entire universe, so they would be more worried if things like this didnt happen
@@The_Toxic_Fool no, Aeons and Herrschers are different. Aeons are entities that have ascended into godhood by "merging" with a Path. You're sort of right about them being batteries, but it's more complicated cause that's only the case when comparing them to the physical universe. If we talk about conceptually, their Paths would be the actual batteries, with each Aeon being more like a wire, connecting the Path to their followers. Herrschers don't follow this, as all but one of them, Herrscher of Finality, are merely fragments of Finality. So already, the power structure is different. Herrschers also aren't ascended through following any sort of emotion or ambition. Rather, they would need to have hatred for humanity, desire for revenge and the ambition to change the world. Then, they need a large concentration of Honkai energy (Sirin being pumped full of it and also absorbing it from Honkai reactors, Nagazora, etc), a focus point for a Honkai Core to manifest and an available power they can claim(Finality controls this I'm pretty sure, but it can be hijacked). Of course there will be changes depending on the Herrscher in question, but we more or less know how a Herrscher should be created. So no, very different
@@The_Toxic_Fool Honkai appears on individual worlds, creating barriers of Imaginary Energy around the entire star system to ensure there's no outside influence, for the most part. So even if Aeons can easily kill Herrschers, they aren't able to because of their own limits. It's the same thing as why Aeons don't just wage cataclysmic wars for eternity and use their abilities to destroy the universe. They can, but are being stopped. They aren't powerful enough to destroy the Imaginary Tree, cause power levels, so that means the restrictions of the Imaginary Tree, finite and infinite energy, is still placed on them. And since Honkai is a "trial" for the worlds of the Imaginary Tree, it will give power to the Cocoon of Finality of that star system, to ensure the barrier doesn't fall. So to summarise, just think of every entity in the Honkaiverse being unable to interfere because the Imaginary Tree is interfering to ensure everything goes smoothly
how on earth did the devs come up with a story like this???
Free hugs from Herrscher of the Void?
Hey come me in.
Out of curiosity I have to wonder, if everything failed and Finality ended up beating the Current Era, you think Elysia's tampering would still be in play to let the Herrschers of the next cycle have the chance to break free, or do you think things would go back to how they were in the Previous Era, with Honkai in complete control?
Elysia, passed on the powers and Authority of Origin to Mei, at the end of the Elysium Everlasting/Realm. If the CE started losing Mei, would then repeat Elysia's sacrifice and leave behind her own version of the Realm for the Future Era of Herrschers and Humans. Which humorously would likely include memories of the Elysian Realm's cast given how important they were to her.
@@Heartrose7e don't know how exactly Elysia sacrificed herself.
But she gave a backdoor for Prometheus, who later became the Will of Honkai in CE, who gave herrschers 'free will' and broke them of the so-called personas.
Therefore, i doubt MEI would need to sacrifice herself like Elysia, although again, we don't know how.
Tfw we thought we finally were figuring things out at the end of Otto's chapters....and we find out we know about as much as we did from Chapter 7
@w@
How these writers don't go insane, i will never figure out
Damn, Shrek is the most powerful character in the Honkaiverse