@StrangerMoontail
My words for almost all of Natlan: "This had such great potential."
@partiallywhole
Also Iansan. The characters from the Travail are usually our top supporters in their respective area. What's her bigger role in the main quest other than being one of the six heroes? Why do I feel like whoever was responsible for making Dehya's kit is now behind Natlan's story.
@xdragon2k
And what's the point of waiting for the 6 heroes to awaken when they all just then sit on the sideline when Mavuika had to go in by herself?
@yensenknight
Chekhov’s gun mention is spot on. Fontaine was FULL of those guns. I mean, Callas’ trial was a foreshadowing of Focalors’ trial. A human ready to sacrifice their life for the sake of their beloved ones. And Neuvillette, not understanding sometimes there’s something humans value more than their own life. Twice. Twice he did this mistake, twice he condemned innocent before learning this lesson
@dtk1981
I swear Natlan was rewritten. Iansan was the signature character and was literally useless in the story beyond being a stand in for an entire tribe we never interact with. Vanessa being a plothole, and before someone say the manga isnt canon remember shes very much still the Falcon who ascended to Celestia. Her entire tribe left Natlan and were the "children of Murata" easily said to be a previous pyro archon but never mentioned. Even the red hair being the signature feature of her tribe, but Mavuika being a redhead from the Canopy. The npc characters designs are so lifeless i cant help but to believe the entire nation was redone last minute and they didnt have enough time to properly flesh it out. What do i mean by this. The designs lack cultural significance in a way that is honestly jarring compared to the other nations. They aren't perfect, but you can at least see what the inspiration is. Natlans' designs come off as if they chose random cultures and took the names and minor traits, and slapped them on characters with completely made-up costumes. They had a general idea and decided not to commit to it when it was time to implement them into the game. I want so badly to see the concept designs for the characters because it will answer so many questions related to the designs direction of Natlan.
@auntiedaria
It also doesn't feel like Capitano's last-minute sacrifice has any effect on Mavuika. Like, she has set up a plan to fix Natlan's problem, then left her family and sacrificed herself to the Flame, wandered a netherworld desert for 500 years, got reborn, recaptured the position of Archon, then started to nudge the pieces of the plan in place so that it can go off before the last shreds of Night Kingdom fall to abyssal corruption. She then makes a no doubt heavy decision to sacrifice herself to LotNK to buy Natlan more time so that it can rebuild itself. Then in comes a man, takes her position as a sacrifice, and like... she just goes "Okay, sure"? I mean yeah, it's a logical and most efficient solution that benefits everyone. But either it's like she always knew it would play exactly like this - which is why she never showed any shred of doubt earlier in the AQ, and tbh it would be interesting to see she always banked on Capitano to sacrifice himself - or that she's so emotionally dead after all of those years it doesn't phase her - in which case, a reverse Furina where instead of mental breakdowns and depression we have basically a death of self would have also been an interesting venue to explore. But she never shows any emotion. She doesn't get mad that all of her suffering has been for nothing, because someone else has always planned to snatch the role of the sacrifice from her. She doesn't crack from relief that Natlan is fixed AND she doesn't have to die a second time and say farewell to her friends and loved ones. It's like it's not her first playthrough and she's only there to collect a few stray achievements.
@kerynmacnamara6822
I'm obsessed with reading all the lore of Genshin and you touched on the one thing that really irked me about Capitano - the lack of his lore. That too was dumped in exposition. Mavuika "everyone in Natlan knows about Thrain", just casually name dropping. Ok, cool, where are the books? Where is this mythology hiding? No artifact sets. No nothing. They couldn't have named dropped him at least in Perinheri? Or had Dain mention his name? There's not even an artifact set. They laid the groundwork for Scaramouche, Signora and Tartaglia (Tartaglia in Fontaine, not in Liyue. There's a weapon foreshadowing his fight with the whale. There's also mentions of "Ajax" in the Tower of Gestalt) for years before their storylines. Arlecchino had a hidden story quest in Inazuma, plus extra House of the Hearth mentions in the Chasm. Everything about the Captain (and Mavuika) was off screen or in marketing trailers. And the odd choices they've been doing on their live streams and marketing recently has been honestly annoying right now. I was so annoyed that they announced Mavuika's story quest for after the Archon Quest before we got the chance to play the Archon Quest. Why put a character in mortal danger and then suck all the tension out of the scene because it's obvious they going to survive, they have a story quest coming up? Ugh. And then there's the painfully obvious spoilers of Mydei's drip marketing over in Star Rail. Their choices have been pretty frustrating. We don't need exposition in the marketing.
@geboaebo
I had never heard show dont tell be described as trusting your audience’s intelligence enough to get the story. I think that’s a great way to put it
@blopbloopbop
17:22 natlanese are so perfect and awesome, xilonen just makes things like its nothing--outlander ancient name, flying futuristic motorbike, flying giant gun--all by herself! sumeru scholars and the fontaine reasearch institute fear her!!
@Haru-er7ci
They keep saying "No one fights alone" but Mavuika intended to fight the Abyss dragon alone and deal with Ronova and the Leylines alone. Contradictive and of no consequence.
@motemo8413
Genshin should stop writing war arcs, they can't do it. they tried with Inazuma and failed, they tried with Natlan and failed,it's enough.
@TheElizander
Awesome video. Very well explained. Something I'd like to add is that, for all the talk about Capitano being a honorable man, a martyr and a hero, noone ever bothered to ask him what made him join the Fatui in the first place. Nor how does it makes him feel to associate himself with an organization so infamous that he's actually known as the one singular high ranking officer who does have honor. This is something I hate about how the writers handle the Fatui we befriend in general. That they are all part of a terrorist organization that deals in arms and slaves trafikin, and human experimentation. Which includes children. And we are supposed to forgive or tolerate the fact that they all are serial killers and or mass murderers themselves by deed at worst and association at best, because they all have sad backstories.
@arianasingawinata3001
My friend said Natlan seemed to be written by an entirely different team.
@slowlypassingaway1285
They need to add more critical characters like Wanderer to spice up the story. Natlan is so full of yes-men/yes-women.
@rainblue4789
the writing for Natlan made the characters feel so disjointed to me it was depressing, especially given the whole "unity" theme, there's usually AT LEAST one character i get really attached to per nation, bc of how they interact with the others and their personal lore, didn't happen this time, felt more like I was witnessing glorified NPC's, an Archon & (rarely) a Harbinger literally only got Kinich so i could be Spiderman and not rely on the janky mobs to climb
@vadimblyat5436
I feel like the captain was an utter disappointment with how absent he was. in fontaine and sumeru you could feel their presence but in natlan there was literally nothing. no threat what so ever and his intentions were mostly clear from the very first scene he appeared and he was just chilling and waiting to be an ally afterwards. No cool backstory could have saved that.
@TkK1122
One thing i didn't like (and is probably very menial) is that i don't wanna go to youtube to view characters stories. I need them in game and not as a link to somewhere else. For example the mauvika video - i hadn't seen it so i had no idea what that convo meant with her sister. Ik it's a marketing strategy and to get more money from views on youtube. But these things should be available in game.
@shinobu3617
Venti shows how tranquil he is, yet his hesitance to show himself to mortals. Zhongli, we were not meant to realize is the archon until later (even if everyone guessed it lol), but his fake death showed just how much the people respected him and relied on him. Raiden Shogun, no matter what anyone says about her, had an intense and intimidating presence when we first encounter her. The only archon who was hostile to the Traveler, and made us feel in danger. Her pulling her sword out, and dragging us into her domain expansion is an iconic moment. Nahida was teased in the summer event, and when we meet her it's an incredible mystery, her guiding us so we can escape the dream. Furina was, well, as explained in the video. Mavuika, on the other hand, is just instant besties with Traveler, and is shown to do powerful things, but none of the moments feel that iconic. She punches the sky, revealing the fake sky, and no one even cares.
@obsidianstar9089
I think that they fell into the pitfall of trying to many things at once, they brought . Leylines . Abyss . Abyss Order . Celestia . War Arch . Fatui . 5 Tribes (all fighting for relevancy, sixth found dead in a ditch) . Phlogiston and Fighting Spirit . Dragons . Ancient Tech . 6 different five stars of equal unimportance fighting for screen time
@Rainthority