[2.5] Naming the Seven Sovereigns - A Genshin Impact Theory 

**NOTES** - In hindsight, I should have included this explanation: I don't think the Sovereigns are LITERALLY the ground we walk on. I'm assuming they're entities like the gods of Teyvat so may be subject to similar rules. Now we know Guoba/Marchosias put all his power into the land (of Liyue) and that made him SHRINK in size and lose his mental faculties. If we extrapolate that event out to the Sovereigns, it's possible that the same thing happened to them. They were defeated, turned into energy soup, and pumped into the land like a weird magic fertilizer. That would imbue the land with their elemental power etc, thereby "becoming the land" without having to literally BE the land.

Fun fact: Leylines are often referred to as “Dragon Veins” in certain cultures, so the idea that the countries of Teyvat are formed from the Carcasses of these sovereigns are plausible.

Interesting theories and great work. About France, we have an ancient gallic culture with two major problems... First, the names had power so dieties were more referenced by their fonction or title, then the roman conquest erased a lot of our mythology. However, there is still a lot of references in places, ancient grounds, mythical creatures... We can name Mélusine (the water faery who created the city of Toulouse), the Tarasque (a gigantic beast living in the swamp near the city of Tarascon), the vouivre or wyvern in english ( living near water and turning into beautiful women)... there is a lot of water involved in those tales actually. I live in a small village in southern France and each year we celebrate our guardian beast, the Tribus Lupis, a giant three headed wolf... So yes, at first glance France doesn't seem to have an ancient mythology, but actually it just got mixed with other sources over the centuries, just like what happened with many other european countries.

Hello! So I can actually read Russian and with some searching I found a myth that fits your theory. While this myth does appear throughout multiple different websites and seems to be consistent, it also exists on the websites that can be easily edited by people, so please take it with a grain of salt. I do not claim that this myth for sure represents the Slavic beliefs about world creation. Svarog is the son of the god named Rod. Rod was originally trapped in an a primordial egg that was floating in darkness. After some time Rod birthed a daughter named Lubov which directly translates to Love in English. (interesting how Tsaritsa was a god of love supposedly). Together with Lubov they broke out of the egg. Rod proceeded to birth the three realms (above earth, earth, and under earth). He was also the one who separated the light and the darkness (some sources refer to this as separating truth from lies). However, the earth was still in the ocean so Rod proceeded to separate himself to become the various aspects of the world. His face became the Sun, his eyes the stars, etc. There is a quote from a resource I am referencing "He was born as himself and will be born again. He is everything that was and that will be; everything that was born and that will be born after;" Svarog continued the work and created a chariot that pushed the Sun and the Moon around and had enough power to lift the earth from the ocean. He also created a serpent named Yushu that he placed under the earth to protected. I apologize for a jumbled text. I tried my best to directly translate from the sources for you. Hope that helps!

So yeah, ZhongLi quest taught us rocks/minerals have memories, maybe treasure compasses are reading the memories of the dragon god we are standing on to find chests. Would explain why they become near useless outside their regions..

Hoyoverse be watching this like, "Yeah, that's true" as they take a few notes from your theory and making it canon.

Oh God, I was waiting for this theory. I was even confused if the actual sovereigns are the hypostasis, and it was susty who sealed their powers into cubes just like how she sealed Lumine. But I'm really excited to see your take on this theory!

Also, “Jubilee” means a special anniversary of an event, especially one celebrating twenty-five or fifty years of a reign or activity. This might help us gain a better understanding of how much time has actually passed in the Before Sun & Moon book.

Pangu, Ymir, and Purusha are world creation gods though. Would probably make more sense if they were the other 3 shades rather than 3 of the 7 dragon sovereigns. But in the context that Venti gave in the manhua, it’s more likely that he’s referring to the real world gods directly. It’s likely that Venti is aware of our world’s existence and characters like Alice can even travel to and from them. Plus, the context given here from Venti was a response to Venessa’s question of what happens when people ascend to Celestia. It might imply that Vision wielders are sacrificed to sustain the world when they ascend or something like that. What these 3 primordial gods have in common is that their body parts got taken apart to create the world.

Russian-Ukrainian history student nerd here! So, when talking about out ancient gods - a pretty interesting detail is that Earth herself is a god. I can't really translate her name any more properly than "Mother Earth", and it is different in cultures it survived in, and we don't know much about her and Slavic pantheon is much more built on vibes than clear god-structure, but, like, earth we walk on IS technically a goddess. She was worshipped as a maternal deity that feeds us, and earth is her body that has to be respected. Like, there still are (though outdated) superstitions that you can't beat Earth or spit on it, since that's an insult, and ancient Slavic folklore is very earth-centered, dependent on nature as it's main force. And another good candidate is Mokosh - purely for the story vibes. She is goddess of weaving fate, "threads of fate will be yours to reweave" anyone? Anyways yeah that's that c:

The Izanami and Izanagi also kind of play into the theme of 2 rulers like we have 2 Archons in Inazuma; Makoto and Ei. Not a Japanese native here, but from everything I've come across, Izanagi and Izanami also go hand in hand like all the time. Like 2 sides of the same coin.

Like it would probably make more sense that Durin was an attempt at resurrecting a dragon sovereign to fight the second throne that might or might not be Celestia. Cause in the beginning the Abyss Order did try to bring Dvalin over to their side. Like what if it’s a triangle kind of thing where First Throne>Dragon Sovereigns>Second Throne>First Throne

Oooooh, so the Travelers are probably from the Light Realm which is why they can manipulate all the elements without any vision, why they say they're "restoring [their] original power" when referring to collecting the elements and why that one Abyss Mage told the Abyss Twin "When your homeland returns to this world, we shall revel in its glory". Being from the Light Realm also would explain how Dvalin's crystallized tears didn't have averse effect on the Traveler, they're used to much more toxic stuff, and also how they could withstand the surely clashing nature of all the Adepti during the Osial fight, it must have felt like having their original power momentarily. Also, Xenoblade reference, nice.

14:25 My theory. The Tsaritsa might be collecting all the Gnosis to awaken the sleeping dragon.

now this is truly unique lore theorizing, we can always count on Ashikai for the coolest theories

This might need an update especially with Neuvillette's reveal

As i get closer to April 1st i grow weary of new uploads. I am half expecting this to just be a 30 second video of you listing off the ninja turtles and their friends...

Even in the event that the game logic ends up being different than this, your explanations and the cool correlations you stablish between Teyvat's world structure and ancient creation myths from all across our world make for very, _very_ *very* entertaining and educational content, Ashikai. Really well done! P.S.: ...Wait. The rocks (Azhdaha) and Water (Lochfolk) are _still_ sentient... what do we make out of it?! AAaaaa-

Before premier: Yes!!! I am patiently waiting 👀. I'd like to think Azdaha was a former Geo soveriegn and Dvalin as a potential Anemo soverign since Dvalin is like pretty young in dragon years while Azdaha is very ancient. After watching the video: A really interesting theory! And yeah very plausible that the Primordial one recycled the original sovereign's bodies. Embuing the lands of each nation where they fell with their elemental energy, which can explain why one nation has an abundance of one specific elemental energy that just so happens to correspond with their archon. Don't get beaten up over the mythologies, its an unfortunate fact that due to wars, colonialization and censorship over the centuries some tales that never got written down end up just lost or unrecognizable from the original tale. Even then there would be countless variations from oral traditions. So a truly correct version doesn't exist for some of these folk tales most of the time.

Alright, after thinking about it I have come to the conclusion that these dragon sovereigns probably didn’t even have names. Like we can use vishaps as an example. Though they were intelligent and adaptive in many ways, they didn’t really grow, evolve, or increase in intelligence until they encountered and did battle with humans for the first time. Their intelligence was improving and growing through conflict with humans. It’s likely these dragon sovereigns simply didn’t have the concept of names. Perhaps the first few humans simply gave them the title of “Dragon Sovereigns” to differentiate them from the other vishaps.

rewatching this and i mean this in the gentlest and friendliest way possible, but ur pronunciation on the aztec gods is ending me NSKXNZCJ

Just a thought, from the lyrics of “Ode to Azdaha”, it mentions it was actually Azdaha himself who broke the earth and flooded the settlements down south. Just something i noticed after watching your Liyue lore video, I hope I’m understanding the lyrics correctly, that was a painful read lol. Anyway loved your videos and your voice, hope you’re doing well and keep up the amazing work, looking forward to your interpretation on the chasm :)

fun fact the old Persian empire spanned from India to Egypt so the character in the trailer looking Egyptian, there being Indian themes in Sumeru and most Sumeran names being Persian all check out.

This theory went up a while ago on reddit about the dragons becoming the hypostasis, and I just wanted to add that the hypostasis also make weird growling groans on their defeat. Idk, another cracked theory on the seven sovereigns

Do you think that Vill-V is “K.K.”? Vill-V’s ability is Mental Partition, and I think she can create personalities of herself that serves different purposes. One of these personalities is named “Kevin Killer” and nobody really knows anything about this personality aside from her given name. Vill-V’s Honkai beast form is also a spider. Not to mention that she created Project ARK… Brahma has a lot of similarities with Vill-V too. The 3 heads can represent Vill-V’s different personas, and the many arms can represent Vill-V Honkai beast form and Vill-V’s floating plate thingies that help her with constructing things…

I have another theory building off this one: What if Khaenri'ah is ALSO built from the body of Ymir? It would explain a few things-- the Germanic references in both cultures, the ideals of freedom fostered in both regions, and why Kaeya was sent to Mondstat of all places. And, taking into account that the Traveler has close ties to Khaenri'ah (I mean, it's slapping you in the face constantly), that's an explanation as to the recurring theme of Anemo characters being important to the Traveler's journey and why they woke up near Mondstat. That was my crack theory, have a nice day :)

14:30 - that can also be an interesting reference to the Tsaritsa. If her plan really is to challenge Celestia, that would probably bring about the destruction of Teyvat as we know it. Therefore when she wakes up (when she gathers the gnosis) she'll bring about the destruction of the world with her. Probably not what's gonna happen but it's interesting at least >. >

OH! I was just thinking about this yesterday. Pre-video thoughts: Dvalin('s ancestor), Azhdaha(?), Kokomi('s ancestor-ish?) Can't wait to watch and see your theory, this one really interests me.

I can always count with a fun Ashikai video to watch while I work. This one will keep me thinking about it.

Interesting theory! I checked some russian sources and found this Phanes-like-guy: Rod (Род) is the main slavic God, the Firstgod and the Creator of everything. Slavs believed that Rod was born from a golden egg, and then created 3 worlds: Prav (Правь) is a sky-world of gods-rulers, that always do right thing. Yav (Явь) is a earth-world, that given to people by the gods. And Nav (Навь) is a night-world of dead, where our ancestors went. After that Rod created first circle of the slavic pantheon (Lada, Svarog, Perun, Veles and ets). Versions of myth are different, but essence is something like this.

On the note of the nations' territories having a certain elemental theme, if I recall correctly, it was confirmed that the Archons shaped the land in their "image" after gaining Archon status and that's why the land has that certain elemental theme. But maybe that's just Celestia's propaganda :P I really hope we will eventually get more info on the in-game worldbuilding that occurred. I'm super curious ^^ that's why I love your content cause it nurtures the crazy in me :D lol

ooooh, lots of interesting folklore and mythology here!! Very chill video! Had a lot of fun sipping my smoothie and thinking about potential dragon names XD

Ashikai: These are the names of the Sovereign. Hoyoverse, who only named 3 because they are the easiest to create: *writes down notes*

In Hindu Mythology and Folklores, there is a god or rather incarnation of Vishnu called Parshuram who was a devotee of Lord Shiva. There is a mythological story that he threw his parshu (a type of axe, also from where his name is derived from) into the sea to create a lush green and fertile land called as Parushuram Shetra or better known as the Indian state of Kerala. Perhaps, Parusha comes from there or from Purusha as Ashikai stated, the cosmic being who was sacrificed by all the other Gods to create life. There might be more similar folklores and stories but this is another one that could have being the source material.

*Late Update:* With the 4.2 Update, we are better introduced to Fontaine with Furina, Wriothesely and of course, Iudex Neuvillette. Throughout the Fontaine story, Paimon consistently questions if Neuvillette is the true Hydro Archon, but that was proved false far earlier on as Furina is confirmed as the Archon. In the Primordial Sea scene, Wriothesely makes note of Neuvillette's behavior, guessing his true origin, but to no avail. After this, Paimon notices Neuvillette tearing up a bit, and rain pouring. It stated according to Freminet, there is a legend that a Dragon of Water once resided in Fontaine, and it is said that every time it weeps, the skies will cloud up and pour out rain. This provides Traveller and Paimon with the theory that Neuvillette is THE Hydro Sovereign, but it's not until the end where we get our full confirmation: Upon the death of Focalors and Furina's transformation to a human, Neuvillette regains his power and lifts the sin off of every Fontaine citizen, reversing the prophecy.

Honestly we will never be 100% certain on the origin of the world in slavic mythology. I can´t give you a good source on the topic in english because even the texts in slavic languages are very brief and hard to find. You also need to consider the fact that a lot of it was rewritten by christians, so you can´t really tell which myths are real and which are not. You can trust the ones that are similar to greek and celtic mythology, they had similar gods and even used similar runes. I can only give you a translation of my own research. I am no expert but i read almost everything there is on the topic (note that there isn´t much in comparison to other mythologies). All of this i have read in more than one texts so it comes from more sources i just mixed them all together. Keep in mind the pagans spoke in many different languages so some names and words will be different for example in russian than in i dunno czech but it all has the same meaning. Allegedly, "in the beginning of time there was great darkness. In that darkness was the Golden Egg, in which dwelt the god Rod, the originator of all things. Rod (Rodhost, Sud) created the whole universe, later also the earth, nature and several gods. Rod first created the goddess Lada (Lado) - she represented love and mother, and with the power of love he broke the Golden Egg from the inside and created the Universe - countless starry worlds and our world as well. The Sun, which came out of Rod's face, he placed in a golden boat and the Moon in a silver one. Then Rod released from his mouth the breath that gave birth to Svarog - the Heavenly Father. His name comes from two words: Rog (has a connection to the word circle = circle represents the sun :) ) and the word svar (the sky)." He is kind of allmighty or whatever. You were right on the fact that he is often depicted as a blacksmith and the god of heavenly fire. He did not create our world though, he was more like the ruler of the Celestian Kingdom. He was not smashing the sun with his hammer, Rod created The Stone of Being Alatyr, which was the center of the world, and threw it later into the sea. At some point in time Svarog struck Alatyr with his thresher, and from the sparks some the gods were born. ( A lot of gods and demons were created this way, there is also a myth that Rod himself became The Stone at some point as a sacrifice so it was really powerful) Now, this part gets weird.... "Rod created the waters of the great sea, from which the Earth Duck rose to the surface and gave birth to many gods and demons. Rod also created the Cow Zemun and the Goat Sedun, from their udders spilled milk and from its drops were born the stars. Out of the butter, Mother Earth was created." You have to understand that the old pagans were a nation of farmers and peasants, they were very connected with the nature and worshipped things they needed to live. Every god also has an animal symbol they are represented by, that´s how much they appreciated the animals that gave them the resources to survive. I can understand that there is a lot of confusion around which god is "the main one" or "came first" since many of them have "the supreme god" or "the ruler of everything" in their description but Rod was the one who created our world. Words like birth, family, nature and harvest were made out of his name in many different languages so he seems pretty legit to me :)

Ok, so my thoughts about this soverigns thing is that the Primordial One defeated them and used their hearts to convert light energy to elemental energy. We know this hearts as Hearts of Gods, or Gnoses. Then after the war with the Second Who Came the winner (whoever it was) declared the Archon War to distribute gnoses to seven gods. Maybe they needed it to establish the whole vision-surveillance system. This leads me to a wild guess that Tsaritsa wants gnoses to shut this system down and maybe deactivate all visions in the process. And we as a protagonist will have to make a tough choice or something like that.

dear ashi, this is very small but i love ur research on cultural legends--it's very well put, well researched, and really really nice. ur theories are great and honestly really should be canon bc if in the canon it's revealed to be not at all close and just very simplistic, that would be pretty boring. your videos really gave me a diff look at the lore and that's really commendable!! good job on everything

That's an amazing theory! I really like the idea of Cosmology and I'm super excited to see what other info we'll get from the new version! ^_^ I also got through the comment section and I am really happy with all the context they provide!

I saw some interesting random thought of the 7 dragons being sealed inside the cores of each hypostasis. The core looks exactly like the cube that sussty sealed the twin in. So maybe they sealed the 7 dragons the same way. Also, if they are a natural life form, why they have a special arena? I mean they should be like randomly roaming like the slimes. + the before sun and moon never mentioned that the dragons were Killer or slain. So... Could be?

When you said Light Energy can be considered all elemental energy smooshed into one thing, I found it really cool bc Light refracts into seven colours, like the seven elements!!

sorry I have been busy with studies lately, great video!!! thank you!!!

everytime someone talks about natlan i sit here grasping for CRUMBS

This was a great food for thought. I was thinking that the seven dragon lords might be sealed within the gnosis. And if the gnosis is like that raw elemental energy container and visions are like the dialed down version that are not harmful to humans. Maybe visions are a way to water down the raw elemental that each gnosis contains?.. Or if a way to find humans that have more affinity to the elemental power who can replace an archon vessel.. The supression of the raw power might be causing the "Corrosion" In Archons?

with the release of Sumeru's desert region, which seems to have historically been independent & allied to the gods of flowers & of wisdom... ...we have the egyptian gods Nut & Geb, whose bodies are the sky & the earth (respectively). i remember their names because they are, as far as i can recall, the only example of a creation deity couple where the female is NOT a "mother earth: Pangu & Ymir are male but they are, so to speak, "single-dads"; other instances of creator couples almost always feature an Earth MOTHER (e.g. Hòutǔ Niángniáng, Gaea, Terra, Mula Kapriti, Papatūānuku, Varima-te-takere...) and a Sky "Father". It makes me wonder whether the vishap gods we've met (Dvalin, Azdaha, possibly Morax) are "descendants" of these past dragon sovereigns or are just their most recent successors. Enkanomiya, why you so screwed over by COVID? ;_;

Good vid. Also about Izanami, after the islands: The two then proceeded to beget the various deities who are to inhabit these lands.Izanami, however, was badly injured and eventually died after giving birth to the fire god Kagutsuchi. Also, about the lightning Sovereign, maybe both of them, Izanami and Izanagi, 1 body but 2 heads.

Watching a video from Wei Apparently the Hypotasis make a kind or dragon cry noise. Some of them are looking like they're crumbling (I think they were like that when we first fought them)

i love walking on the corpses of dead gods......anyway. i friggin love venti in the manga. mans just sits down, opens that mental library of every song that has or ever will exist and just spills tea. with absolutely 0 context. yass venti, give us nothing gurl

I automatically liked the video with that vertical "hello" xD keep up the good work you are the best! On another note I'm starting to think that the ley line energy was originally honkai energy...

Great assessment. Much appreciate the effort you put in your videos.

if talking about gods that created the world with their bodies there's also tiamat to consider, from her body the gods(her children) made the earth and sky. would maybe also resonate with sumeru area in this theory. also to add, if this theory would be true, it would somewhat place the primordial one in a sorta grey evil area, considering they would've killed living beings to make the world theirs and ready to recreate their own world. that enka book still gives me strange not so good vibes too about the primordial ones.

In Honkai Star Rail, there's an ancient "pre-cataclysm" robot called Svarog that kinda in "sleep mode" since it just cam record all the events while it stayed still in abandonment. While there might be no connection, at least we know Hoyoverse willing to use such deep story to any thing.

Finally someone talking about this!!! I asked so many creators to talk about this! And Xenoblade reference got you tons of points!

I also agree with the theory that the names of the hypostases cubes such as: Beth, Gimel, Aleph, He, Daleth, and Ayin would make more sense for names of the 7 dragon sovereign. Cause look at the hypostases’ cores. They look like the diamond core that was formed when the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles sealed our twin. Like maybe the Primordial One didn’t kill the 7 dragon sovereigns but rather sealed them into these cubes instead to power the world or serve some greater function or something.

As far as I know the creation myth for slavic people, dunno when written, is about Perun and Veles. That Perun was sailing on a boat through the water world, looked into the water and poof, Veles was created, and then Veles suggested creating the Earth, because he wanted to rule it, but he couldn't create it himself, so he asked Perun and Perun agreed but told him to dive into the water and bring a grasp of sand from the bottom of the sea (?) while saying that he is taking the sand in the name of Perun. Veles didn't do it, he tried to take it in his name, because he wanted to be the ruler of Earth, but because he didn't take it in Perun's name, each time he reached the surface it was without the sand, because it got washed away by water. So finally he did as Perun told him, and he created the Earth, and they exited the boat (as far as I remember) and then I think Perun went to sleep? And Veles tried to throw him into the water, to become the ruler of Earth once again, but each time he tried, Earth was stretching beneath Perun, so he never was actually thrown into the water, and thus how the big Earth was born xD I seriously cracked when I read this story. This story comes from a Polish anthology of slavic mythos, so it may be different than the Russian one, as a lot of stories vary depending on the region. Also, slavic people didn't really have a ruling god, someone who was seen like Zeus or Odin, because we didn't have the pantheon as far as I know. Slavic people just worshiped the gods they liked the most in certain regions, so depending on the region, one god was more important than the other. Perun though seemed to be very popular, especially considering he was a God of War to some extent, and he became associated with someone akin to ruler of gods due to influences of Greek pantheon and such in modern slavic texts about our mythology. Perun is also seen as Svarog's son, so... yeah. And there is also Rod, which I know shit about, because I was never interested enough to look up all slavic gods.

When Yan fei discovers another library in Teyvat to be her background of her content in the next update, there will be more theories and lores to be analyzed and unravel. haha! Thanks, Ashikai, for the interesting video and looking forward for more of your analysis and theories. haha

Waking up the ice dragon with the power of all the gnosis(es? gnosies?) being the cryo archon's big plan sounds pretty cool! It may be a long shot, but I like it

i love how u use yanfei as your narrator. the way you talk really reminds me of her!! btw, yanfei main here and i really adore her!! Love these kinds of speculation vids too. keep them coming!!

I just want to say that I found your channel recently and I love your videos. You're very thorough and knowledgeable and your content is super fun to watch. I'll be watching through your old videos for a while. Thanks for sharing your lore/theory thoughts with us!

Since Azhdaha is referred to as 'king of the vishaps' I've been nurturing a pet theory that he's either one of the old Sovereigns, or one of their replacements. This could be wrong because we know SO LITTLE about the Sovereigns but like WHAT DID YOU USED TO KNOW AZHDAHA WHAT HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN TELL ME ABOUT PRIMORDIAL ONE AND PRE-PRIMORDIAL ONE ERA YOU'RE OLD ENOUGH I do love this theory tho... it'd make a lot of sense. I've been wondering for a while why each nation seems connected to an element-- like it's a super common fantasy trope, to make 'The Fire Kingdom!' 'The Water Kingdom!', etc. But few things in Teyvat are so simple, and ALL of the nations have way more depth and culture than just 'we're the Earth Kingdom we have a bunch of rocks and maybe a desert =)' (Like in the basic version of the trope, earth/rock would usually be a desert, but Liyue doesn't have the desert, from the manga, that'd be Sumeru, but Sumeru is the Plant Kingdom too, so most of the time it'd JUST be the rainforest-- etc yeah you know) But like... it'd explain some Stuff. Stuff like... the way the elements tend to affect natural life. Now, it doesn't apply perfectly-- we find the main Electro Hypostasis in Mondstadt and not Inazuma, after all. But it explains stuff like... Anemograna, Geograna, and Electrograna in some regions, but not others. Sakura blossoms reacting to Electro, specifically. Different colors of Crystalflies, since they all give Crystal Cores maybe they're all the same species with adaptations from absorbing different elemental energies? ...Tho to be fair it could also just be. Influence of Archons or leylines or even just environments. But! The nations being made of recycled dragon juice and affecting the environments and weather sounds insanely cool to me! It's. Interesting to consider.

When talking about Svarog being the sleeping sovereign, you showed Kokomi on screen who yeah, is known to have her constellation as Dracaena Somnolenta or the Sleeping Dragon. Would she be a good candidate for the reincarnation of the water dragon? I’m assuming water because it would be strange for a sovereign to have an elemental ability other than it’s primordial energy. secondly, Azhdaha. Azhdaha is one of the only dragons in-game to really have a definite element associated with him. He is very directly known as the Lord of Geovishaps, and when observing the tree at Nantianmen, it seems to be, in reality, Azdhaha’s tail which you can tell when comparing the tree’s structure with his boss model. the boss model may just be an incarnate illusion of his remaining power, which the real body of Azdhaha might still be buried underground. If we do factor in the size of the tree, this would make him insanely huge, taking up probably the entire base of Jueyun Karst (which we know to be an extremely holy and powerful energy-wise area of Liyue any way.) this could fit into your possible foundation of the land theory maybe? This does not imply that Azhdaha is necessarily the first incarnation of the Earth Soverign but perhaps the most RECENT one?

i don’t think anyone could’ve guessed before he came out as a character that it was neuvi

Very interesting! This hadn't crossed my mind until now. Although, if I have to nitpick one thing (which, in all fairness, is not common knowledge), it's that "Aztec" is an exonym; the people of that culture actually called themselves Nahual, and spoke Nahuatl. And here's my two cents of musing about the Thunder (or Lightning) Dragon: Given that Inazuma has/had twin Archons (disregarding the fact that Ei never technically became an Archon), I think it wouldn't be too far-fetched for there to have been two dragons who "counted" as one. After the whole thing with Izanami in the underworld, Izanagi removed his eyes and his nose to create Amaterasu (sun), Tsukuyomi (moon) and Susanoo (storm). So yeah, while two are astral bodies and one is a meteorological phenomenon, I guess it *could* still count if you stretch...? Also like. As is common in the myths of many cultures, Izanagi and Izanami were also twins themselves. I dunno. I'm reaching, haha.

hello! for the slavic mythology i think Marzanna would fit! she is a god of winter and death, which would fit into the snezhnaya theme. there is a ritual called the drowning of marzanna, which represents winter moving into spring, so that could sort of be like killing her?

My favorite part is the fun hello in the start Edit: traveler will have light power in the end of story

The idea that the sovereigns became the land of Teyvat and imbued it with their power is actually really plausible! If the vishaps and these sovereigns came from the light realm, and the power of light is too toxic for humans to survive in but can be tolerated in a milder form, then it makes sense that as the essence in their bodies started to deteriorate the light power would translate into elemental energy and each nation would be imbued with said energy. The land of Teyvat has always kind of felt like a living thing to me as well, like the ley lines seem like veins, or maybe even a nervous system that can recognise and react to “stimuli”. It always feels like the land knows what’s happening to it

can we just appreciate the amount of research mihoyo/hoyoverse had to do to create genshin and all the different cultures and gods? it's incredible.

Odd rando question but i literally have no idea where else to bring this up but why do oceanid and the thundering oceanid just look like large seelies? I am partially blind so if it’s just ME then I understand. Its the one white eye thing and the body shape thing. They both float. Are they of the same race?? Do I even get what seelies are??? Are these bosses the spirit of a past god before celestia’s rule???? My brain has been looking at oceanid for an awfully long time wondering what its reminding me of and since I realised it looks like a seelie my brain has *not* allowed me to let it go. Granted I do have adhd but let’s pretend its intuition😭 Im grasping at straws but the body proportion of a triangle shape from wide to skinny is present if ignoring the head on both thundering and oceanid, which seelies have. Despite the thunderin representing a bat and oceanid representing a mermaid. *leaves* *as* *i* *have* *nothing* *to* *add* *as* *conclusion* *nor* *evidence*

Think you got the Izanagi-Izanami story a bit crooked. Izanagi was the one that created Japan, by sticking his spear Ame no Nuhoko into the ocean and raising the islands from the droplets that fell off of it. Izanami died giving birth to the fire god Hi no Kagutsuchi, who burned his mother to death. As a result Izanagi killed him and split his body into eight pieces, which became eight volcanoes. Interestingly, the Raiden twins are also more likely based on Takemikazuchi, who was born from the corpse of Hi no Kagutsuchi, and was the god of lightning and swords. He also famously invaded Japan (in reality just Izumo, and is probably allegorical to some Bronze Age Yamato-Izumo war), ruled by Susa no O's descendant Okuninushi, and conquered it for Amaterasu. The Chinese version of "Treasured Tales of Chouken Shinkageuchi" actually describe the Narukami's arrival in Inazuma as "渡來", implying they were not natives to Inazuma at all but were rather from another land, perhaps even across the ocean, strangely reminiscent of Takemikazuchi's invasion of Japan.

I really enjoyed this video. I’m so glad you found a fitting god per sovereign element. :) I hope Genshin actually uses these god’s names.

You know, Inazuma has two Electro Archon (both are also siblings). What if the Lightning Dragon Sovereign was both Izanagi and Izanami but in a singular body. Like, a dragon with two heads and two personality.

I said it on a previous video too; Mondo really gives me Attack on Titan vibes and now it is related to Ymir (I know it is different Ymir but still fun to think of) too... So who's starting THE RUMBLING?

Cool, this feels like some metamythology is at play here.

I think Coatlicue would be a better fit for Natlan. She's also known as the Mother of the Gods and in some portrayals is a dragon, although she's more commonly seen as a womam with two snake heads and a skirt made of more snakes. There was a war in between her and her children and when they defeated her, they fashioned the world out of her bosy

These type of theories is why I love lore, thank you!

She really predicted SVAROG for star rail 💀

As someone who is v casual with genshin but interested in the lore, ashikai is a god send. 🙏🏼🙏🏼

This a really interesting theory! I love watching you videos ♥

Now im excited to see a future genshin having a titan/kaiju clash like end of the world scenario on Teyvat.

I think we were all waiting for this to happen very soon.

Watch the Tsaritsa's plan to fight the gods involve waking Schneznya's respective dragon. Or rather the Abyss seems very keen on "recruiting" dragons themselves for future battles. (Dvalin, Osial, Beisht, etc.)

In a way tracing sumerian myths with irl hindu/indian mythology is going to be interestingly tough mainly bcs there's so much out there Source: indian kid who attempted to track down backstory of *one* god and that led me to like 50 different websites

Ancient France was Gallic and later Gallo-Roman after the Romans invaded. They had a god called Cernunnos who was involved in their creation story. It has something to do with a horse made of sea foam called Eiocha and someone throwing bark into the ocean.

i'm slavic & pagan and have some pdfs saved about slavic folklore and gods if that's something you'd be interested in! i also have some actual books, but they are indeed not in english... :') it's not something that gets a ton of research outside of slavic regions tbh (and even there, sadly! F) anyway, i like this theory! also re: the gods being made into "energy soup" as you mentioned in the comment, could they have also turned into the actual elemental energy of teyvat? like the thunder god's death created electro, the earth god's geo, etc etc. just a thought, bc i honestly don't recall off the top of my head if we've been given a clear reason for why the elements exist in teyvat in canon hahah

Fun fact. Hinduism is mankind’s oldest religion. Apparently it’s even older than Zoroastrianism.

i don't have any observations to add but i just wanted to say i love your videos so much!!

I have a theory with no basis that the sovereigns have all reincarnated as different humans with visions like kokomi as the water dragon,shenhe as the ice dragon because it is odd they got a dedicated archon quest if they are not going to be important later. Also if this theory will make sense then that means that the human reincarnated sovereigns are in aware of there true identity.

Yoo I dont know the exact place but I was exploring enkamomiya and noticed an island that the lower part had some kind of weird rock formation that looked like a horn then I glided there and also noticed some kind of "snake scale" over the whole thing, I coldnt explore more cuz I was doing the 7 plates quest for a friend but damn, if that was orobachi giving part of his body to enkanomiya, would be sick.

thanks for making Ayato's wait more easy 🥺💖 edit: loved the whole video, it was really interesting, I really hope they explain it someday 'cause the manga scene was really random without given it context

So basically, the dragon lords are the seven continents/regions. This is taking me Xenoblade 2 and Aion in terms of big dragons being around in the early days of a planet.

holy shit, rewatching this after the Chasm released and my GAWD you were bang on xD

I really, really hope Fontaine has Celtic inspiration. You know how often anything Irish gets featured in a game but isn't a joke? I'd love to see our culture getting some love.

Soo I'm not russian, but bulgarian and ij school we were though a little about some slavic gods like Perun, Dazhbog, Chernobog, Belobog, etc.. But you probably read about them and the others and yeah not many have similarities with this sovereign theory except Svarog but I still went to Google, cause it also sparked my curiosity(I like the slavic paganism, as we still practise some rituals and traditions) and found something, that maybe can correlate not to the sovereign but to The Tsaritsa maybe. In a bulgarian Wikipedia there were listed most of the slavic gods and one of them was the goddess "Mora(Мора, морава, мрава, марава)" in Bulgarian and "the mare" in English and at first it sayd in Bulgarian that she is the goddess of winter and death. And in the trailer the chapter about Sneznaya is called "Everwinter without mercy". Then I looked into the English version of that Wikipedia page and found that specific paragraph about her: Etymologically, Polish zmora/mara is connected to Mara/Marzanna, a demon/goddess of winter.[23][page needed] It could be a soul of a person (alive or dead) such as a sinful woman, someone wronged or someone who died without confession. Other signs of someone being a mare could be: being the seventh daughter, having one's name pronounced in a wrong way while being baptised, having multicoloured eyes or a unibrow (exclusive to Kalisz region, Poland). If a woman was promised to marry a man, but then he married another, the rejected one could also become a mare during the nights. A very common belief was that one would become a mare if they mispronounced a prayer - e.g. Zmoraś Mario instead of Zdrowaś Mario (an inverted version of Hail Mary[23]). The mare can turn into animals and objects, such as cats, frogs, yarn, straw or apples.[24] People believed that the mare drained people - as well as cattle and horses - of energy and/or blood at night. So I can't say if that's 100% true, but I thought it could be an interesting food for thought. 🤗

As someone who *is* Slavic and is *trying* to find more reliable sources, j got your pain. Most of academic literature is finding examples for validating it and trying to piece something from the puzzle pieces that have been through like thousands of filters.

Huh I thought the primordial god for Celtic mythology was Aton Ciminei.

Purusha means human in Sanskrit. That could be something

That light energy that was poisonous sounds kind of like the elements that are poisonous to people unless they have a vision.

All your theories are very fun to watch. Now for some who can be curious. About Russian myths. As a Russian myself what I could immediately find across the web (i took only the parts that survived the cross-check) is that the basic creation myth could be somewhat influenced by Christianity as it involves one God creating the world, but in fact, it sounds a lot like Indian or Chinese legends and also fits Genshin's story about the Primordial one. So, it goes like this: At first, there was nothing but chaos, everything was one. Then the ancient god Rod (which basically means "genus" or" or "kind/species") descended to earth in a golden egg (kinda like Phanes - or as you will see later it sounds like an ark or spaceship). At first, he decided to divide light and darkness, and so the sun rolled out of the golden egg, illuminating everything around. Then the moon appeared, taking its place in the night sky. After that, the Rod created animmense water world, from which the land later rose. Huge lands on which tall trees stretched to the sky, various animals ran, and birds sang their wonderful songs. And he created a rainbow to divide land and sea, Truth and Falsehood. Then Rod rose up on a golden egg and looked around (like the egg can be controlled as some vehicle loll) he liked the fruits of his labor. From Rod's breath the goddess of love Lada was born, and she turned into the bird Sva. Rod then divided the world into three kingdoms: the heavens, the earth and the underworld (genshin stuff here xd). Heavens were for the gods, who should keep order on earth, which was the realm of people, and the underworld became a haven for the dead. And through all 3 realms there grows a gigantic oak - the World tree, which grew out of the seed thrown by the creator. Its roots are hidden in the world of the deceased (basically in the abyss.. leylines??), the trunk stretches through the earth kingdom, and the crown supports the sky. Rod inhabited the kingdom of heaven with the gods. Together with Lada Rod created the mighty god Svarog. They gave him four heads so that he would look to all ends of the world and keep an eye on order. Svarog paved the way for the Sun and Moon across the sky. Since then, the sun rises at dawn, and at night the moon floats out into the starlit sky. /////////// Slavic mythology has its roots in Indo-European religion so myths have lots of similarities with the ancient Greek and ancient Indian ones. I could also find one more version of how Rod created the world, which is more suitable for you so here you are: "The God Rod, together with his sons Belbog and Chernobog decided to create the world. (Belbog - White god and Black God, basically Light/Goodness/Sky God and Chernobog - Evil God who is sometimes said to be a big snake!, partially snake or even a crow). At first, Rod created three hypostases of the world from the ocean of chaos: Yav("reality" - earth, world of humans), Nav ( may be connected to the word "delusion" - the abode of dark deities) and Prav ("rightful" the world of light gods, divine law). Then the Sun was born from the face of Rod, the moon appeared from his chest, and his eyes became stars. After the creation of the world, Rod remained in the Prav (maybe like Ei without her body remains in her consciousness) world, from where it directs its children (other gods) and distributes responsibilities among them. No mention of land so far, but yet another version of this myth also says that Rod created the earth as well and it sunk into the ocean. Svarog (after his birth from Rod and Lada) noticed that there is no land so he asked some (magical) ocean duck (??? some say it was a god too) to bring the land back and after 3 tries and with the help of Rod the duck finally brings the land back from the depths of the ocean to surface. Rod then placed some dragon (!)- called Yusha under the land so that it doesn't sink again. Myths about Svarog making the earth/land himself look really more like jokes or children's fairytales to my opinion. Also, Svarog is pictured nowhere as a dragon or snake.

Now that the chasm is out I bet there will be a lot of theories. Especially about the mysterious letter wich is actually catullus 55 since the only row visible is translated as the row 21 of the poem

yknow when we see the abyss sibling in "we will be reunited" and their little accents on their outfit is like a whitish gold ? and you know how our travellers outfit changes depending on what statue of the seven we resonate with and what element we currently play as . .. . . .. does that mean the abyss sibling has the 'light element' with all of the other elements in there ? cause they've already completed their journey. . . just an observation lol 😭😭