I find that those who write the lore and those who write the actual story quest are vastly different. Reading lore about characters is like reading a Greek epic while story quest is like a 6 graders blog post.
They actually have different writters for different fields. For example despite world quest still tied to main quest/lore, they have different writer for main quest and world quest. So, it's possible they have different writer for lore too
Yeah, the lore team is just made of much better writers. The lead story writer just isnt as good as people under him, and the game suffers a looot from it.
What's worse to me is that thanks to her, the new fatui that's coming to Natlan supposes no threat anymore, she beat the first, she has never lost against anyone or anything. So why should we care? "The first three have powers comparable to that of the gods" now lacks significance
I have hopes that if she comes across dottore as the second harbinger sent to natlan to fetch the gnosis, he would bring up a real threat to natlan that even killing him won't work bc he has other segments so she has to agree to his conditions and give him the gnosis
I'd argue that there is nuance to that statement rather than just taking it at face value. Notice the use of the word "power" which is different from strength. Capitano is the strongest in terms of physical strength but I always had the belief that he will lose to Dottore. That's because of his moral integrity and honorable status does not work against Dottore's scheming and moral scruples. I would even argue the Arlecchino's style is the best counter to Capitano but I digress. You also need to factor how each Harbinger has different approach to achieve their goal. Capitano approached Natlan head on; Dottore schemed behind the scenes in Sumeru; and Arlecchino got the gnosis through diplomatic means. All in all, whoever Harbinger they substitute to get the Gnosis will have an enetirely different approach than Capitano and there are plenty of ways to get Natlan's Gnosis.
She is so perfect that the game is afraid to make her not good at something There is a short text that details that Mavuika couldn´t paint, she was perfect at everything else except art, so she decided to try it after the war She mastered it in a day. THAT is the problem with this character, the "human archon" feels like an inhuman robot that is programmed to do everything
The one that really gets me the more I think about it is that her parents had a rocky and unhappy relationship, but then Mavuika was born and their relationship was saved!!! Legitimately, adding a baby into a failing relationship is the worst idea possible - adding sleep deprivation and loud high pitched wailing into an already tense situation is NOT going to end well. Bizarre decision to have that in her story.
@@raptoriit’s all to paint her as this perfect savior, which ironically makes it very easy to dislike her People don’t like being forced to like a character, it’s why every other archon is leagues more popular (and made way more money lol) Every other archon has a flaw, and something that makes them likeable Venti is a homeless drunk but also truly believes and completely trusts in the idea of freedom Zhongli is detached and lacks tact, but he’s wise and knowledgeable Raiden is a social recluse that goes tyrant mode on a whim, but she’s adorable when you get to know her Nahida is inexperienced and not taken that seriously but kind and wise for being so young Furina is introduced as an antagonistic idiot, but the entire story causes you to like her Mavuika is just Perfect There is nothing else to her She’s an amazing leader that is never questioned Her plans succeed even when they are completely terrible (and fail) She’s lauded and adored She has mastered every craft and skill, just because she could There is nothing to like about someone so perfect, nothing to relate to Nobody is perfect, nobody can relate to her You know it’s bad when the character running with the archon makes up around 33% of sales
17:30 honestly having a shapeshifter villain that DOESN'T try transforming into the heroes friends is kinda crazy to me. It's like the most basic shapeshifter trope and they didn't even include that
Honestly i was confused why i didnt get the sense of "empathy" With mavuika like i did with Furina. I mean they both had to sacrifice something, a huge part of their life. But now i know. Furina actually cries and feels tortured by this sacrifice, while Mavuika is just "yeah, this is needed for Natlan". I mean, sure just passing by Hime would just be easy, but when Mavuika has to "kill her own Sister", it would make the story much better. It would be AS memorable AS focalor's death and Mavuika will have her flaws, and we get a well written character. Thats it lmao
Since she sacrificed all they could also have done another sacrifice arc where she is convinced that she only exists to save her nation, and being reckless she is convinced that she will sacrifice her life without hesitation to win (like 2 previous archon but this time being the main person itself), would have been cool the power of friendship there trying to stop her and help do it together without dying, but she is just perfect and all works out (literally could add a scene when she is struggling and mc saves her)
@@asoret I'm super confused on Mavuika's SQ for that reason. Why did the Traveler ask Mavuika that one question in the cutscene? Isn't he supposed to be much more older and experienced? Didn't we fight countless battles and refuse to yield even against the most powerful enemies possible? The already nonexistent characterization of the Traveler is somehow destroyed even more.
@@milesperhour9256 idk I lost it since fontaine when the traveler yet again refuses to help people like it isnt the best way to get close to the archon and make whatever questions, also they do nothing in that nation plus the meme hydro from I only remember them getting knocked down in the navia clorinde scene and just get protected like is average newbie mc lol when they were that strong against childe, signora and scara
@@asoret this, we literally had this writing for xiao in the chasm quest. But for xiao, his survivor guilt and endless karmic debt were explored properly. The power of friendship aspect in that quest was handled 1000x better
Count me in as one of those people. I only know Capitano a bit but somehow I understand his personality more than Mavuika. For me, Mavuika makes being an archon as her personality. The archon who is perfect at her job. But Capitano is, like people said, noble and idealistic. He saved many people's inside his heart not because he is a commander, but because he has noble personality.
@ same!! i love him so much. even though i know he’s a fictional character, i can’t help but feel immense respect for him. they developed him as a noble person even when faced with difficult decisions. mavuika just felt… bland. she didn’t seem to struggle much. even though it was clear that hoyo tried to give mavuika struggles or moral strife, it felt like she dealt with it TOO perfectly. like you said, she’s perfect at her job. with the captain, we know that he made mistakes, killed people, was a part of a shady organization, and was tormented for years by the souls within him.
actually, i remember Citlali's line now, "but what do you want?" even Lord of NK asked that, but she just says "i'm leader, i have to do this" yeah, ok - you do you, idc anymore
@@SuperMassive_Rapscallion see this is why i’m delusional and convinced that he’ll be woven into the storyline more in some way, esp. in Snezhnaya’s chapter. like, i don’t think they’ll bring him back from his slumber at any point, but i don’t know that this is the last we’ll see of him in terms of lore/plot development. at least i hope not lol.
I loved his sq for that reason, it helped show that he wasn’t a “gary stu” while also having a really emotional story. Mauvika’s sq barely focuses on her and does nothing except glaze her for “winning” a fight against xblanque
@@w7ndI No cuz so much people called Neuvillette a Gary Stu, and I'm like??? Are we talking about the same person???😭😭😭 But tbh, I think Fontaine was peak character writing. I feel like every character was fleshed out - same with Sumeru. They cooked with those two and then burnt with Natlan
this is why the male characters and female characters without the tall model are written better. like, take a look at all the archons. ei and mavuika definitely had the worst writing...felt like they were created for aesthetic purposes which is a shame because they're both expys that were hyped up af. venti, zhongli, nahida and furina on the other hand were wonderful
Another option when she met her sister could have been for her sister to comment on how little it seems like Mavuika shows emotion. If her consciousness went through 500 years it must have been affected, just like you pointed out. It could have been a moment to say something like “you were born a human, are you still a human now? Living that long is not a human experience, being human means to face death” etc etc. It could have brought in more conflict, made her situation more tragic, and highlighted some interesting themes
This is great! She could be a character like Violet Evergarden or Frieren, slowly learning (or relearning) about her feelings over time. Showing more emotion in future quests. It'd show that she was actually affected by the war, but couldn't let it show due to being the perfect leader her people needed.
To be honest, she’s just a human with HUGE responsibility. Words like that could tear her apart, she already tried to mask her pain even before herself (very vivid with Hine on screen). We need to understand that ANY big inner conflict for Mavuika would mean Natlan’s death, a second of doubt would mean that everyones are doomed. She’s not like other Archons, her failure would mean end of her people. Closest to that was Furina, we witnessed her pain in a realm Celestial couldn’t reach If not that we would never know what she went through. But Furina knew her part in the plan yet the execution was in someone else’s hands all she could to was to play her part and trust.
@@Propolis00 That doesn't really track for me. Mavuika is decidedly NOT the same as Furina, there's nobody scrutinizing her or doubting her. Any personal doubt or fear on Mavuika's part does not necessarily equate to absolute failure of her plan. In fact it would make her even cooler because true bravery is acting despite fear, not the absence of fear. It would make her struggles and eventual victory more meaningful and profound, instead of the hollow, bloated, easily-won victory that was just handed to us. It would also humanize her, something that she sorely needs.
I was much more interested in kinich, who appeared for 10 minutes in the quest, than Mavuika to be honest. His backstory is so compelling and ajaw is so weird that i can't help but want more of him
I know😭😭 Like kinich and ajaw had SO MUCH POTENTIAL, yet one of the most interesting characters in Natlan get the LEAST amount of screen time… I love Natlan but it disappointed me so much😢
Me too. I love Kinich so much despite he barely gets enough screentime and not even the focus of his tribal quest/story quest. And I know his design might look out of place, and I myself agree with that, but I love his design even from the first time he was revealed. Listening to all his voice lines and reading his story in his profile make me fall in love with him even more. Sadly, his lore is not implemented in any quest and only limited to his profile. It's weird that I'm not interested in characters who have more screentime like Mavuika at all, and yet I feel so interested with characters with barely enough screentime like Kinich and Ajaw.
@@Elyssa_00 Gosh this is the same for me: My favourite characters have been adepti in Liyue (especially Moon Carver and Mountain Shaper cuz we still know NOTHING about them and got shitty NPC designs when meeting them in Lantern Rite), Thoma and kinda Kujou Sara (both only really appear in one act of the AQ), gosh EVERYONE in Sumeru like it's insane (like how come I actually remember NPC's names in this region?!??!), found I actually quite enjoyed Emelie *after* i played her quest, the 3 Hearth siblings all have so much potential I wish we could see more than just Navia and Chlorinde (not to diss them, just want some focus on other smaller players, eg Freminet), then Kinich & Citlali (still playing thru her quest) and even Kachina (we saw her situation but didn't really get to see the process of progress or truly know HOW she progressed/was taught by the traveler). I guess to focus back on your point, I don't read a lot of the lore on their pages, but end up learning most of it through fanfiction. When fanfiction/their lore page is where you learn about the complexity of a character, that takes a lot of potential out of interactions and getting to know the character, like a person gets to know about a friend.
@@terrahatvol7960 Surprisingly, there are a lot of fanfiction writers who actually did way better job at flashing out the characters that they only borrowed from existing medias, than the actual writers of said medias.
Ironically enough, there's a character in HSR who seems to be a perfected version of Mavuika: Feixiao. And this fox general has more flaws than perfect human Mavuika. I've thought of this and discussed this with some people but two details stood out to me. 1) Letting the lady has small flaws 2) Have the lady delegate and depend on her friends, peers, subordinates. Feixiao is introduced as an undefeated general, but we are shown little things that ground her. She's rowdy and hot-blooded so she leaves diplomacy and espionage to her more discreet and level headed friends Jiaoqiu and Moze. While she's peerless in combat, she consults strategy with her peers Jing Yuan and Huaiyan who are both better suited for tactics and logistics. At the climax of Wardance, she entrusted an important task of holding her back as she's in berserk mode to Yanqing, Yunli, and March who are younger and not as powerful/experienced. Feixiao brags about how she lacks worries but Jiaoqiu's injuries clearly affected her and weights on her despite having her ailment cured thanks to his sacrifices. Then we have her funny quirk of being a lightweight and violent drunk. Mavuika tho? It's all her one-woman show. It's all her plans that she works on herself but there was little to no hiccups or oppositions towards her. Nobody gets to question her because the writers don't let it happen and if someone tries then Mavuika proves her point. Yay! She doesn't let Kinich have his moment, just take his sword to have her limelight. What a great leader. Her stated flaw of being bad at painting? Oh look, she's perfectly good at it. Like damn, we might as well just send her to defeat Celestia since her plot armor frees her from even a funny quirk.
I agree with you on Mavuika (I can't say anything about Feixiao because I don't play HSR) except on her blocking Kinich. Capitano is the first of the harbingers, with the harbingers down to rank three being on the level of gods. Kinich is strong, but letting him fight the Captain would be so dumb for her to do, just letting him walk into his death. Capitano vs. Kinich probably would have looked like Raiden vs. Signora, and Mavuika needs him alive since he's one of the six heroes.
@@HighLevelPlayer funny you mentioned that, because just so happens in the quest that HSR lets the aforementioned young ones Yanqing, Yunli, and March to have their own time to shine and actually do significant damage to Hoolay, an ancient nemesis and former enslaver of Feixiao, even if they struggled against him. Feixiao only appeared last minute after the trio had their spotlight especially as culmination of Yanqing's character journey and later had her "battle of the mind" as her own moment so nobody outshine the other. In other words, the game coulda let Kinich and even the other heroes have some scenes fighting Capitano. Doing their best but ultimately outdone by the First Harbinger, but at nick of time saved by Mavu. They just. Kinda refused to let Kinich have any significance ig.
@@jeongyunkim6360 it's so ironic since they share the same Japanese seiyuu, but even the performance quality is kinda a chasm like their writing imo. No shade to her seiyuu though, I have a feeling it's the voice direction. But yeah, it feels like Mavuika was meant to emulate Feixiao yet the execution is as we can see.
Thats because Raiden was so flawed (as a person) that created a lot of controversy So this time they did the complete opposite, and created a Archon that has no flaws whatsover But the problem with Raiden wasn't that she was a shitty leader, but rather the problem was that her actions had no consequences and no one held her responsible
I fell the same way about Mavuika. The plan she made 500 years ago was a bit irrelevant because the Traveler and Capitano finished the job. All Natlan characters were in the supporting role in the story and without the Traveler, they might not make it. But yeah I see the connection.
People dislike Inazuma for *how* it was told, they don't challenge the fundamental premise. They engage with the story and themes and come to the conclusion that it could have been told a lot better, as a result of their fundamental enthusiastic investment in what's going on Natlan just feels like people didn't enjoy what they got, aren't invested in it and there's not some big outcry for how to fix it because it's a lot more fundamentally uninteresting, rather than being interesting but beefing it in execution.
I don't get people who say that Raiden never got any consequences. Raiden literally faced the consequences of her past ideals when the Shogun defied her and forced her to fight 500 years. People expect her to get crucified by her people when that was never a realistic expectation to begin with following Inazuma's worldbuilding.
I wish we knew WHY Mavuika was so strong for a human. What did this human do to become (theoretically) stronger than someone older and more experienced like the Traveler? It feels like she has plot armor
Inherited Ancient Name, basically the passing of power through all the past archons until now is what makes her so strong. She has their teachings and words of wisdom on hand
the moment someone becomes a Pyro Archon, they gain knowledge of the entire land aka they have access to all the information about the nation. also their inner flame(which is potential) gets awakened. Mavuika states that not everyone's potential is that high but hers turned out to be so, matching even the great Pyro Archon Xbalanque
uhh I don't know maybe because of the Divine Throne and the fact that she is the current holder of the Pyro Gnosis, a device with seized authority from the Pyro Dragon Sovereign, one of the original wielders for the element of Pyro across the whole of Teyvat period? You really think Celestia would have a weak representative human or otherwise? And what does this have to do with the Traveller? we've long since discovered that not only does he/she have fragmented memories but an incomplete skill set as well and has failed to overcome just about anything on his/her own without the help of someone or something and succeeded every time, that is plot armor. They already discussed warriors in Natlan with either little to no skill or a natural strength physically and spiritually as discovered in the latest story quest. It's no different than someone being talented versus someone who isn't. She was probably already a vision wielder and we know how powerful ancient names are.
I honestly expected the Pyro Archon to be a passionate, competetive warrior-lady who'd be *the least* archon like of all the archons. Someone who spends a lot of time with her people like drinking, playing games, organising and competing sport while also being very passionate about everything she does and very open with her emotions. She laughs the loudest, cries the loudest and when everyone is angry, she is the angriest of them all. Also a passionate fighter who will look at any great monster and thing "IMMA KICK THAT THINGS ASS!!" while also being a "cool-mom" who gives pep-talks and does a bunch of weird and goofy things to give others a confidence-boost. Like she'd see Sucrose and be like "Y'know what? Have my sword and some of my power, now lets go and find the biggest, scariest monster we can find and *YOU'RE* gonna kill it. Cool? Cool." But Mavuika feels too chill, to calm and collected, too "generic mom" for me, I wanted EXPLOSIVENESS, PASSION, BRAVADO, THE EXTROVERT'S EXTROVERT!!
@@warrencaelum9536 Tbh I'm fine with characters being into the Traveler. E.g. Xiao definitely has feelings for them, Lyney is super flirty with them, and Shenhe probably likes them. I just hate it when a character is a blushing uwu tsundere (the wet dream of gooner players who are scared of talking to women) and that's their main personality trait (๑•﹏•)
@@ET-tu3gpyeah, characters are allowed to show interest but when they have nothing else contributing to their personality… it’s just so sad (looking at you Ayaka)
It would explain the whole tech thing going on in Natlan and her modern clothes. It would be interesting the reason why Natlan was doomed was do to the never ending war, keeping the whole nation of war thing.
You are correct. She did not live for 500 years. She traveled through time (basically KOed and respawned into the future) and the only reason the animated short had her bike was to create the hype that she has a bike because it made absolutely zero sense for her to have it in the first place. Everything about her is just so out of place. Especially when you compare that short to Citlali's teaser trailer of actually having to live for over two centuries, the parallel makes it even more obvious. She has no flaws. It makes her so empty. Nothing about her screams Archon. A 500 year plan would have worked? What if it didn't? She had no guarantee and worst of all, she skipped that 500 years anyway so how many have died during that timespan? The fact that Capitano spent that 500 years fighting for a Nation that is not his and enduring all the souls in his heart. His anger towards her in the previous quests is so valid (even though Hoyo made sure he just agreed with her in the end) that it just makes her all the more unlikeable for me. Then cut to the current arc where she wants to offer up her life? Give or take a few hundred years was all she could come up with from 500 years ago?? It felt so cheap and was not well thought out at all. Idk, she was just so disappointing for me as a character.
A simple change I would have made to her scenes in the Archon quest: Her sister (while Mauvika was in the sacred flame) would go every night to pray to the flame and try to update Mauvika on her life. Trying to talk to the sacred flame to somehow reach her sister. So, when Mauvika meets her sister in the Night Kingdom, she suddenly gets a flash of memories long forgotten, specifically, of all the thousands of prayers her sister had made to her. This makes her break down, and we see a critical moment of weakness, of her having an urge to stay with her sister’s spirit in the night kingdom rather than face the dragon she knows has a high chance of killing her. Idk, just an idea. I’m fairly neutral on the Nathan quest, there’s a lot of things that were neat and some gorgeous cutscenes, but it really missed a lot of the character focus and mystery of Fontaine (my favorite region aesthetically, story, and character-wise)
We do see a bit of expression change when she does meet Hine. There is sadness there. My personal reasoning for this is just that she's really gotten good at bottling up her feelings over the years, maybe to the point of almost feeling numb? War might've done that to her. It would've been interesting to see more of her actual humanity show which I hope we can get in future Mavuika content because we do see her wish for people to just see her as a regular person and she does still have a love for the extreme sports still since she is a Scion of the Canopy. Perhaps her wishing to have a closer relationship with more of her people rather than being outright idolized could be a good story point. Also Natlan altogether felt more about the land itself and the people as a whole rather than individual characters. We saw the real time effects of this 500 year war on the nation. Thousands actually died. It's not a bad way to tell a story but yeah. Character focus kind of took a hit because of it. I say this with Mavuika being one of my favourite characters and really liking the Natlan Archon Quest btw, though I didn't do Mavuika's quest yet.
yesss if only she cried more, she needs to be super vulnerable and cry because thats what girls and women do. the fact that most of comments like these are coming from women is absolutely hilarious
@ …huh? Is crying upon seeing the ghost of your long-dead sister who you missed the entire life of not a scene worthy of tears? If not that, then what would be? Crying is a natural human act that both woman and men do. It’s inherently humanizing to see a character cry. What’s your point here? That I’m being misogynist by wanting a woman to cry? Or that crying is inherently female and somehow I’m upholding a stereotype by wanting to see Mauvika cry? What a strange comment.
it's weird how abyss is shown to mimic living stuffs since 5.0 and can learn knowledge of natlan leyline, they even created overworld boss that mimic other bosses, which is a perfect build up for a final boss that mimic the closest ones.
It would have worked if they didn't made so obnoxiously loud that Mavuika either way was going to win. If they *actually* had shown Mavuika strained after the biggest war and made the time perception tighter to *actually* feel that she was racing time on this we could have had a way better immersion on wanting to support a weakened archon who happens to be a human. But, nah.
I hate this term, but unfortunately Mavuika is a Mary Sue, nothing she brings to the table, her personality is just being "incredible in everything she does and an admirable person" that's all, There is absolutely nothing bad about her, no flaws, no problems... Venti is a God with responsibility issues and alcoholism, Zhongli has adjustment issues and is broken, Ei's a social weirdo with dictatorial tendencies, Nahida is innocent and inexperienced and Furina is human in her entirety, How is the Pyro Archon, who was supposed to be the humanity of the group, the least human among them?
Mavuika is Rey, and Mihoyo reduced Capitano to another Kylo Ren who saves her in the end. She's apparently supposed to be this Himeko, and should've died because of it.
@@ziephel-6780i don’t think mavuika is ray. Mavuika was basically raised in the time of hero’s. She howned her skills was a fast learner and rose to the top is it lazily explained yes. The difference is ray grew up with nothing no father figure no training no even much ability to learn. Then suddenly she can do anything without training. The difference it mavuika is explained but poorly and unsatisfyingly to the point it feels forced. Ray feels like the writers didn’t even bother trying to justify it.
@@robertlaidlaw4592 agree she got training, but also seems she was just born perfect, like highest talent ever surpassing people training for decades in a minute, kinda feels like all the gohan beast drama but thats even worse, wish she had any flaw, or that she was that convinced to save the nation that she would have self sacrifice tendencys, like she doesnt have anything else to loose so why not? then friends could have save and stop her, or idk same as the video maybe she trusts that much herself and others that put them into a problem and starts questioning herself
Whoaa, so I'm not the only one who think that way 😂 Yeah, she's so Mary Sue because she's capable of everything. Other archon feels more like human because they have flaws.
Honestly I didn't understand why HYV made Mavuika a human, because nothing in her personality is human. Unlike Furina, where we saw the burden that the role of a deity can have on the human psyche, Mavuika, on the other hand, doesn't have this problem at all. There was the animation dedicated to her, but even that clearly didn't do justice to her human side, because she recovers from her pain very quickly. And that's my first problem with Mavuika: she has no adversity. She was destined to win from the start, everyone accepted her plan without flinching, even though it was said several times that it was risky, and the rare times when people tried to put spokes in her wheels it ended very quickly. Mavuika has no weaknesses, her moments of pain or difficulty are super fast, everyone says how cool and badass she is...in fact she's a Mary-Sue. EDIT: For those who tell me that Furina and Mavuika didn't share the same burden, it's false. Remember that if Mavuika's plan turned out to be a failure, then the entire people of Natlan would have been decimated. Mavuika could have lost her nation and her friends by betting everything on a plan that turned out to be random from A to Z, because if Chuychu hadn't died, Chasca would never have awakened so Mavuika's plan wouldn't have worked. And that's the problem: for such a risky plan, Mavuika suffered very little from the possible disastrous consequences that it could have caused, she was never afraid to tell herself that her friends and her nation that she is supposed to protect and lead could have died because of her, she was always very confident despite the number of deaths in act 2.
@Sasha-cb8mt The animated short was so bad. It was so vague that you cannot even tell if Mauvika is struggling for 500 years or if she is just bored out of her mind. Her face doesn't express sadness or regret or tears, just a blank stare that can mean anything. Hoyo really does do a lot of things so vaguely that one persons interpretation is just as valid as the others. I can't feel bad for her if she doesn't show clear signs of sorrow. Blank stare doesn't equal sorrow any more than it does boredom.
Way to out yourself as someone who didn't read the fucking story with your eyes open. Mavuika doesn't have this problem because she hasn't been alive for 500 years. She was alive 500 years ago but then gave herself up to the Sacred Flame in order to be reborn into the future. She hasn't been alive for 500 years, it's still her regular age. If you'd like to know what 500 years is like for a normal human to endure, you have her little trailer where she takes her bike through 500 years of history and it's uncertain to Mavuika when she'll stop and be reborn. We see her falter and struggle to find the courage to keep this going, unsure of how long it'll take. She's not a Mary Sue, you're just a retard.
Not trying to defend Mavuika or anything but an important part of Furina’s burden was not just that of being a human deity, it was the immense stress of having to convince the whole of Fontaine that she wasn’t human. She had no way to prove she wasn’t human, no powers, no hydro authority, so the only thing she could do was play a character. Not only that, but she could not confide in anyone because if anyone knew the real Furina the whole of Fontaine would be in danger. Even though she was surrounded by people, constantly praised, always in the spotlight, it was all meaningless because none of it was directed towards her but instead the person she was pretending to be. She was truly alone. 500 years of solitude would take a toll on anybody, but Mavuika never had that burden. People knew her as the pyro archon but there were also people who knew her as Mavuika.
@@zukodude487987her voice doesn’t either.. I think the studio failed the interpretation of Mavuikas character and voice atp (no hate to the Va cause she can definitely do a great job and put a lot of emotion into her!!) but sadly there was no emotion in her voice 70% of the time
@ I think it is an issue with the game in general where almost every character story is its own contained story with no actual substance or no clear direction and very generic. They are like filler, nothing meaningful and very generic and doesnt contribute to their development. A lot of character lines are also very generic like how Yanfei says the laws can be *good or bad*, like yes the laws can be good or bad, that is obvious. I can say the weather can be either cloudy or clear and both are good and bad in their own right, because it is self evident an thus meaningless to say unless you are talking to a toddler. It is just meaningless word chatter for the sake of having the characters talk. The characters need more direction and contribute more to the overall world or story. Mauvikas animation was a clear example of filler and keeping the story vague. I think they are doing that cuz they dont want the players to feel like the story is gatekept behind a youtube video, but it has the side effect of making the videos worthless to watch much like Naruto filler is worthless to watch.
It doesn’t help that the Abyss didn’t feel threatening at all! We’ve been folding Hilichurls, Abyss Mages, and Rifthounds for years now. The only new abyss enemy mimics other enemies. They gave us of a taste of how dangerous the abyss can be with the Narwhal in Fontaine, but didn’t expand on it at all. All I kept saying to myself in the AQ was “Y’all are losing to this”?
Liyue characters: Put aside their differences with the Adepti, fight hand-in-hand, and sacrifice their homes to protect Liyue after their beloved god was assassinated Inazuma characters: Form a resistance army, create an underground network to help people escape a fascist nation, stage a coup against a tyrannical government Sumeru characters: Devise a plot and break the law to celebrate and free their imprisoned god despite constant surveillance and mind control Fontaine characters: Take action according to their own strengths to save the people of Fontaine from a cataclysmic event, put their god on trial for not putting in the same effort Natlan characters: Say some really nice and encouraging words from the sidelines
@@justinbailey1669 Traveler did nothing in Fontaine. legit u can remove them from the plot and nothing changes. meanwhile in Natlan they cured so many people from abyssal corruption and even helped to take down Eroded lord of the primal fire it feels like Traveler did the most in Natlan out of all the nations
@@motemo8413 traveler isn't meant to take part in the main events anyway. their main reason for exploring teyvat is to find their sibling and be a witness because their memories cannot be tampered with from things like irminsul
@@vilfs their goal hasn't been to find the sibling since we will be reunited quest. they are exploring Teyvat to see the truth of this world that made Abyss twin take the path that they did
Can we also talk about how the best researchers in Fontaine are still playing around with gears while xilonen somehow casually creates djs and bikes and rollerskates even with the limited resources she has
And it's just what she throws together when she's not doing her job of carving Ancient Names, I guess. Just casually outdoing every single bit of tech in the rest of the entire world with her earbuds in. Because, you know, something something -magical fairy dust- phlogiston.
Fr… everyone always going on about Fontaine tech, and khaenriah tech, and freaking dottore who’s a genius made some mecha god with the sumeru scholars… and then u got some random smithing girl in natlan whom you’ve never heard of outside of natlan and is making mad futuristic sht…
@nowifi8063 "never heard of" is because of the Natlan isolation. anyway, let's see if they make some kind of event in Fontaine organized by the FRI and Ocelotgirl is the superstar... 😐
@@binsarm9026 isolation u say? It’s not like people from other nations don’t visit natlan… you’d think some scholars from sumeru or engineers from Fontaine would have heard of her and seen her tech.
Feels like the B team wrote Natlan/Mavuika. This can't be the work of people who made Sumeru/Fontaine. And as much as people hate aranara quest, atleast the Archon quest of Sumeru was S tier. As much as you hate the desert, the secrets/lore of the pyramids were worth it. The world building was crazy. How did we go from Fontaine/Sumeru to Natlan? Such a downgrade. While doing Nahida's birthday quest, when they were getting a family photo at the end, all I could think was how attached I felt to the Sumeru characters. I ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT THEM. EACH ONE OF THEM. Then I reflected at Fontaine cast... Furina, Neuvilette, Lyney, Arlecchino, Navia, Wriosthley, Clorinde, Sigewinne, Lynette, Ferminet, Chiori.... I really felt connected to every single character. I liked their story, liked their quirks, liked their designs, their playstyle. I wanted MORE FROM THEM. Like what they're doing now how are they? That's how well written they were, we forget for a second that they are fictional characters. But then I look at Natlan characters. I FEEL NOTHING. They are so surface level and shallow. Ideally I should have recency bias since this is the latest update and I should be in the honeymoon/hype phase. I spent my hard earned primos to pull them. Yet I feel no connection to them except Kachina and Ororon. If some of them were unalived in the war I wouldn't have cared. That's how bad Natlan characters' writing was. The blind Hoyo shills downplay this fact a lot and this is very bad cuz the writing will get worse if you don't criticise them now.
I'm so glad you mentioned the Sumeru characters because a lot of these waifu obsessed shills try to downplay the mid reception of Natlan and make it seem like only the "husbando pullers" are hating it due to the lack of male characters. A lot of "husbando pullers" I know from various online spaces love Sumeru's characters male AND female because they're written well. They have and develop character relationships that we actually see onscreen that's why they are received well. Sumeru characters has a whole ass literal "found family" theme going for it.
Saying hoyo shills made me disregard everything you just said, also fuck Sumeru's story and it's characters, Dehya and Wanderer were the only good characters it had.
It's crazy how Mavuika is supposed to be the only human amongst the Archons yet other Archons feel so humanlike and have emotions but Mavuika seems the farthest away from human emotions despite being a human. She is perfect in everything. No vulnerability, no weakness, nothing. Bravo writers 😂
@@angellexgamer5416 Mavuika is the only human archon (except from Furina, however she was always perceived as a god by her people anyway). The way I interpreted Mavuika is that she was so strong and actually godlike in order to contrast the archons before her. Venti is a drunk, zhongli retired, ei was a tyrant, and nahida was imprisoned. Mavuika contrasts the other archons by actively playing a role in her nation and leading her people. She acts like a god who supports her people and leads them despite being human. To me, that adds to the overall point of Genshin and hoyoverse games in general where the “power of humanity” is so important. It would make 0 sense to make her seem weak or vulnerable.
I like to add onto Angel kitty's comment. We already saw her insecurities, fear and lonesomeness in her animated short. Seeing your friends die, knowing you're outliving everyone and your family. 500 years of waiting and being in her own subconscious was enough time to wallow again and again and then find her resolve again to fight for her Nation. Why I like Mavuika is because we finally had a competent archon who could lead and fight alongside her people. No internal conflict manifesting itself in her existence, no mentally cooked person, there was no saving her because she didn't need to be saved. If it felt like we had no time to connect with her it was because it was purposefully written that way. She had no time for herself up until the end finishing her painting. It's the first nation that felt like a nation and challenged the gods. Her biggest flaw and the most humanistic characteristic in game, is self-regard. She doesn't hold herself to any standard and see's no value in her life, such as renova said. This was all shown in game through the archon quest with how much her dialogue and interactions has her worrying and fretting about the abyss. She never has time to herself. Her SQ also touches more on her fears. But if multiple people choose to ignore it and provide shallow arguments to fit their argument, then we're all just going in a circle.
@@Angel-Kittyy it's fine if it's with the people, the same way furina did. but we barely get to be with mavuika this AQ that even if it's only the traveler and mavuika. she still has no flaws. there's no human who doesn't have vulnerability on them. A perfect cardboard character is still bad character writing/
It felt so wrong when the game outright needed to nerf and humiliate Xbalanque in order to hype Mauvika . Xbalanque one of the most hype characters for natlan. Turned into a npc kids and defeated by Mauvika . That was sad to see
They successfully killed any hype I had about Xbalanque haha. I don't even care if he becomes playable or not. I'm still holding out hope for Xihucoatl..... barely.
Turning into NPC kid ain't the problem. The fact that this story quest promised us with exploring non-battle mode Mavuika and simultaneously introduced Xbalanque into the plot is baffling. Citlali is reduced to a worrywart, Iansan feels one-dimensional as heck, Ajaw and that red Ifa bird take up screentime to show that the plot is not even a page long. One of the worst story quests ever in-game.
@@stevieveringus3857 It was supposed to be Mauvika's story quest, but I didn't feel like it explored Mauvika's character, personality or history at all. I came out of it knowing the exact same about her going in.
@crypticcryptid4702 she's an empty shell of a character. Someone superficially saw a successful sports captain with good leadership skills and did a lazy copypasta, added more polymath genius tropes that has nothing to do with being a god of war and finally excreted this character.
Something that bothers me is Mavuika's plans in general. Her plan for Act 4 is magically hoping that the last hero wakes up before everyone in natlan dies (and if everyone in Natlan dies then the rest of Teyvat has to deal with her failure). Without that last hero, Mavuika does not get the power of Ronova which was the only thing she mainly planned to save them with. Whatever death toll you got is a direct consequence of her refusing Capitano's plan and running on hopes and dreams. No one ever complains about this including Chasca whose sister died and could have lived had Mavuika informed her she was the last hero. Her next plan is to offer her life force up to stabilize the leylines but her life force is only worth a few hundred years. When asked how Natlan will cope after that runs out, she basically says: "my successors will find a way somehow". If they can't, Natlan's leylines just get ruined then. She has no concrete plans for the future. In comparison the plans Capitano had were more concrete and the last one basically saved the entire country from having to worry about the leylines because they are now sustained through Capitano's immortality.
It really bothered me when she said that they can’t force the hero’s to wake up, like woman you’re at war with the lovecraft monsters, you don’t have the privilege of time.
My thoughts exactly. I have most beef with her stupid plans which are all clunky and uncertain. Despite being called out multiple times throughout the story, all of the characters ended up saying "let's trust her". Anyone doubting her was labeled as either a villain or a traitor. Mavuika refused to speak and explain her "gathering" plan to Chasca, which resulted in thousands of people died in the Natlan war just to wait for Chasca's natural wake-up. And if Capitano didn't step in, Ororon would never get the chance too.
@@kneeofjustice9619 this omg, when the only logical guy in the room (capitano) showed up they immediately reduced him to another mavuika yes-man They could've progressed the story to make mavuika realize her plan was too risky and try look for a middle ground with capitano
You helped put the finger on part of why I felt so uncomfortable with the final act of natlan, I also wasn't a fan of the traveler-glazing during the story either honestly. US getting a parade and a crown and SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS? while the archon of the nation who really did most of the fight is trying and failing to slink off to die was so DEEPLY weird as a choice, not to mention the even weirder choice of having the old man recount the archon quests we JUST went on to some kids and having the kids conclude that the traveler is EVEN MORE AWESOME THAN PERFECT ARCHON. The "retelling" scene went on way too long I kept waiting and waiting for it to cut away and just going "Why..." I wasn't a fan of Mauv having no struggles, but the traveler themselves barely struggled either. Natlan was just going to parties and getting praised over and over, the war arc was interesting but in the context of the no-struggle nation falls a bit flat sadly. Even the interlude resists every impulse to allow even the npc characters to struggle by showcasing magical abyss-PTSD that's disabling and hugely impactful and.... fix it with one sip of a potion! It has side effects, but they aren't shown, deliberated about, or considered really, AND the cure is foisted onto some of the characters without any sort of informed consent, overridding any of their potential wishes for recovery. I think if the natlan tech incorporated the big thing that was unique about their nation THE SAURIANS it would've gone over way better imo, but since we can pick up and use the saurians in the overworld I guess they decided incorporating even scales or feathers into the tech to make it fit in with the settings wouldn't stand out enough to make people buy the characters or something? or somehow going for some wild "anti abyss" glowy stuff could've worked. For that matter it's wild we mostly got human and dinosaur enemies when the abyss has been attacking forever and ever, no new abyss monsters? Ah well... weird choices overall for the nation.
Respect your opinion but kinda disagree on the glazing part. Traveler has made a name for himself in other nations so people already has bias on how great he is and to see it into action by becoming the very first outlander to be given an ancient name and not to mention it was directly given by the night lord herself and not the wayob makes him very special on the eyes of the natlanese. And the parade was both for the traveler and mavuika but she just didnt join because she still needed to do the thing with Ronova. In my opinion, the glazing part was kinda nice lol. The dancing was cringe tho ngl. Agree with how they dealt with the ptsd though and I also think they did Capitano some injustice after all the hype built around him.
Nah. We deserved the Parade and all. By this point weve helped saved 6 nations already and Natlan os the first time they've put out all the stops as a thank you for helping them.
I think Hoyo missed a huge opportunity to make Mauvika and her sister act either as a mirror or a foil to Traveler and their sibling. What if Mauvika giving up her normal life to play a huge role in Teyvats fate but leaving her sister behind was allowed to be the obvious parallel it feels like it should have been?
My interest in Genshin is at its lowest point atm since launch. The only saving grace of Natlan is just Citlali's story quest for me. First time ever that I had 0 interest in an Archon, making her the only one I didnt pull even though they made her so busted. Also why does the story have so many celebrations, you finish one thing -> party -> repeat..... Use the damn time to flesh out Capitano's character more instead, absolutely disappointing how they handled him.
Same, except even Citlali fell through for me. Her initial design, and skill descriptions were very interesting... and then it all turned into pillow fighting, plushie throwing and futon floating. F*cking why, hoyo???
@@alexmelik4030 It's still "fine" compared to the other Natlans (Ororon is fine too). I see it as poltergeist thing since her tribe deals with spirits. Still within reach, unlike some random ass motorcycle in Teyvat.
@@caitw6528 oh yes, Ororon is a single bright (dark?) spot on this sh*tshow. Costume is somewhat half and half, but good character and badass skill design.
i feel like part of mavuika's traits that they could further develop is her savior complex and how she always goes the extra mile to assist everyone with their problems and issues, and rushes towards danger without hesitation or consideration. something that might come off as reckless and unnecessary, maybe even unwise cos she always resorts to punching her way through things without planning further ahead or considering the consequences of her actions or how it might go wrong. smth like Korra if anyone's familiar with her character which would fit well with mavuika's status as an archon and the expectations that her people set on her to fight back the abyss and save the land.
Except she wasn't brash and was well aware of the consequences of her plan and how much of a hail Mary it was. She just considered the consequences of capitano's plan to be worse, something she thought about before he was in the picture
@isdrakon9802 they're some professional lore writers. i'm sure they can figure smth out. im just a fan tryjng to make the best of what we were given so take it with a grain of salt xd
Having to leave Furina to meet Mavuika feels like reading a masterpiece of literature through centuries, and then having to read an 11 year old’s first Wattpad fanfic
they wanted to portray her as the bakugo of the archons the symbol of victory they failed to show significant struggles that would've endeared her to the audience
100%. The pacing of Fontaine was so well done, the mystery just kept building upon itself until everything came crashing down. Not to mention Neuvillette and Furina's incredible character arcs. Natlan spells out in Act 1 that Mavuika will save everyone. And then... nothing happens to challenge that, her plan works with no hiccups for the next 4 acts, and the character with the most meaningful character arc in 5.X is the potato saurian companion. Neat
Marvuika just feels so...bland. Like literal cardboard. I don't hate her, but I don't like her either. Because there's nothing TO like or hate about her. That's how boring they somehow managed to make her. How the actual hell did we go from Venti, Ei, Nahida, Zhongli, and Furina to her.
There are actually something to hate about her , she took so much screentime while having zero personality , players complain about paimon who infinitely more interesting than that cardboard
I understand why people find her boring, but I guess that's what makes a good archon. Loved by everyone, calm, intelligent, powerful, inhumanely flawless. In my opinion, she's the first archon we've seen that actually FEELS like an archon, and ticks all the boxes. Feels like a breath of fresh air to me, compared to what we've experienced with the other archons
It's fine if some characters don't have standout flaw or quirk, I can enjoy more simple ones like Robin from hsr and Tohru from Fruits Basket. Genshin has its fair share of mellowed capable characters too, but what makes Mavuika stands out from them is that they spent SO MUCH time to glaze her. Damn near every moment she's on screen there's going to be someone praising her or just build up how awesome she is. The marketing for her is quite aggressive too. It affected not only her character but also made her relationship with others so boring. She has her flaw, but the way it's presented doesn't look like a flaw. And every character has to make sure you focus on how good she is at everything. Seriously why is she good at every hobby she picked?
@@Luberryya gojo has silly traits that humanize him, and his past literally affected him so much and thats why he has the invisible barrier up 24/7. Even then, seeing geto again still tirggered him at the station. While mavuika's past doesnt rly lead anywhere when it comes to her behavior/emotion
Guys, maybe I'm an idiot, but where is Varka? Where is his expedition, where are the damn horses? They've been in Natlan for 5 years and when the traveler got here, nothing was heard about them at all? Not a single note, rumor? This is strange...
@@KabooYT id argue the non aq writers have the biggest claim yo fame when it comes to the story line and whoever pocks what details to add to the AQ just skims the lore for stuff they think is "cool enough" rather than making the character stand on their own anymore
When you think about it... Mavuika's plan wasn't great, was it? She didn't take traveller or Capitano into account when she made it, and without them, she would've been cooked. Without Capitano, Ororon wouldn't have gotten his ancient name, and Xilonen would've died. Without Traveller, Chasca could've died. When someone from a completely different nation who you didn't even know about has to save one of the six main people your plan hinges on TWICE... yeah, not looking good.
@THATBrokeAroSpecWallet Yeah, no, Chasca joining her sister would be great for me. But Mavuika needs her to be alive for the plan. If she wasn't, Natlan would've likely been destroyed in 5.1 since she wouldn't have been able to access Ronova'a power.
it's a nothing plan. Hoyo just said, she travels 500 years on a motobike and will solve the war problem -- just make her *look* cool for revenue and fit in whatever filler stories around it
Lore wise, the unrivaled technology of Natlan is something I just can't brush off... like their only explanation is "oh phlogiston + xilonen goes brrrr" but like?????? A flying bike???? A flying gun???? A defying gravity skates???? Like we heard how revered Fontaine's tech was thanks to the years upon years of geniuses that worked in the institute that we can track back to René and Allain... yet Xilonen *ALONE* shatters all these creations in her short life span thanks to phlogiston??? How on earth would she not be one of the most famous people alive in all of Teyvat???? Yet everyone's response is "is a cool flying gun just get over it", "bikes are cool... don't think about it too much"
This omfggg The closest character when it comes to invention and tech/research is albedo BUT he got a thorough explanation abt khemia, rhinedottir and so on. The fact that he himself is the product of khemia is also another thing. But xilo is a deus ex machina for all of these tech they have it's just downright lazy writing
To add more salt to the wound, Chasca's flying gun, Xilonen's rollerskates, AND Mavuika's bike felt very out of place that it looks like they only got those equipments (weapons?) through pure one-sided privileges. Mualani's inflated shark is understandably came by the People of Springs culture since they lived by the hotsprings and all residents are like your typical beach people community. Kinich's spiderman like kit is a clear reference to their local Saurians ability at the Scions of the Canopy. I see Ajaw being an 8-bit sprite as an easy pass considering we have the Akasha hologram back in Sumeru. Kachina's drill, a creation of Xilonen herself is influenced by the Children of Echoes' geography and their long history of mining and forging weapons. Then you see the rest of the average enemy NPCs (non local legend) looking more tribal w/ some sort of magic going on. I still cannot ignore the itch behind my ear after discovering Mavuika have the whole Flamestrider mechanic (flying, climbing, surfing) except grappling, DESPITE FORMERLY BELONG TO THE SCIONS OF CANOPY
I just can't believe that those things exist in the same world where a 1900s camera, Khaenri'ah's clunky ruin machines and Fontaine's steampunk technology are considered high tech.
What I find frusturating is that a lot of this could be resolved if they had just implemented the lore from the “Sunset” animation into the main game. People shouldn’t have to watch content on UA-cam, outside of the main game, in order to fully understand a character. It is quite literally just a stupid approach to a character. Like, imagine if they never told us Furina was suffering for 500 years, and she was just a “human version of Focalor”, and the only way to figure it out was to watch a short on UA-cam. That is absurd.
I mean, maybe itll get expanded on in game with her second sq? But even then we kind of already know what we know, it feels weird having to wait like 5,6 months just for them to talk about it again.
@@GhoSt-mu2io They did this with Firefly in Star Rail. Honestly, I don't watch the starrail shorts. If it mattered, it'd be in the game. Pissed off a lot of Firefly simps because I called her a basic waifu and people try to go "noooo she like lost a bunch of friends and stuff" really? Then why isn't it in the game? Sorry, I'm not doing homework for another game. She's presented as a basic boring waifu in game, so she IS a basic boring waifu in game.
Every archon has only gotten more complex as time has gone on. Each new archon since Morax has had some conflict with their nation’s ideals and it has reflected in their character arc. Ei’s writing was awful, but you can definitely see some crumbs of what they were trying to do. Her arc is about learning to let go of her need for control because of her fear of loss and change. She must come to recognize her people’s will and respect it. Nahida’s story ties in to the themes of Sumeru and Dendro as a whole: coming together and sharing in knowledge and community. She has to learn to believe in her power and come to acknowledge her compassion and strength by all of her newfound friends. (and i think it helps that, for me, sumeru had one of the best casts in the game. The way all of the unrelated characters and story beats came together to support her in the end was just ~chef’s kiss~.” Furina had by far the best story out of all of the archons. She is in appearance the god of justice, yet her situation in life was nothing but unjust. Forced to play a fraudulent role with no end in sight, always having to put on an act because if anyone realized the truth, all of Fontaine would be destroyed and her efforts would be in vain. The way Hoyo made sure of the way we would react to her at first - assuming she’s out of touch and moronic - and the way they kept that momentum going all the way up until they dropped the 4.2 update and we learned the truth was amazing storytelling. I think her character carried the 4.0 story, and is why so many remember it fondly. And at last we have Mavuika. On first glance, her story is moving and tragic. She gave up everything to put a plan into action to save her homeland - and soon the world - from utter destruction. Her character is marked by maturity, optimism, and loyalty to her people. Her belief is that the shared experience of Natlan’s history - the sacrifices, the glories - is the most important thing of all. This puts her at direct odds with Capitano, who, despite them sharing the same goal of saving Natlan, believes the heart of a nation are the people themselves. This conflict was so interesting, and I was looking forward to seeing them butt heads and test each other’s ideals. *cough* *cough*. The theme of Natlan is: No one fights alone. I’ve seen people criticize it, call it weak, but I disagree. The story isn’t about the archon, it’s supposed to focus on Natlan and its people. Their entire culture, for thousands of years, has been centered around fighting the abyss. They eat, drink, and sleep warfare. Naturally the story should center the tribespeople because this is their story, not hers alone. Instead most of the main characters get sidelined in the stadium while their archon and the traveler fight their final boss for them. So fucking lame. Mavuika’s conclusion arc should’ve been taking a backseat and trusting her people to fight the abyss dragon themselves. Maybe she could’ve dealt the final blow or something, idk. The way Hoyo wrote the 5.0 story, everything was leading up to all of the playable characters teaming up and fighting together, but i guess hoyo realized that wouldn’t sell as well, so they changed it. I have no clue, I’ve been scratching my head since 5.3 dropped as to how they could’ve dropped the ball on the finale this badly. In conclusion (or tldr): Every archon’s story mirrors the ideal of their nation. Mavuika’s arc bummed a lot of us out because Hoyo wrote her role to be secondary to the main cast, a leader and mentor figure, and then pulled an UNO reverse card at the end and sidelined everyone else to give her arc an unimportant focus that rings empty in the face of the story.
Even if her people had the power to fight Gosoythoth (which they likely didn't), they literally couldn't even enter the Night Kingdom to approach him cos of the sheer amount of Abyssal contamination. Only she and Traveler had the resistance to get close enough to fight and defeat him.
I can kind of get behind this actually but It had been established that she was the only other one capable of staying in the Night kingdom for a long period of time besides the Travler who could basically just chill there because they are completely immune to the abyssal corrosion. Overall acts I, II, IV were great, act V was ok and act III made me want to off myself
"No one fights alone" While 6 playable characters with Visions where who are clearly powerful than the NPC and Saurian ghosts that appeared later on--- were outside while delievering whatever their power of friendship speech to the Traveler and Mavuika😂😂 Mentioned one time that Mualani has been champion for several times in previous Pilgrimages before Kachina took her streak. Why tf is she not there to help us at the end?
@@ArmorFrogEntertainment If Kachina had not understood what the disappearance of the flame meant, that Mavuika had called the flame to her to step through it, and started singing the ode of resurrection, I don't know that Mavuika would have been able to bring Traveler back when Goysosoth killed him/her. It is implied through the whole story that the ode grants the willpower of the people to the archon, to bring back what is lost. I don't know, I felt like that was enough. Some people complain that the singing was lame because "the power of friendship" but it is a firmly established mechanic of Natlan.
I feel like it would have been more interesting if they sent a different Harbinger. Imagine if someone like Pantalone or Dottore were sent to Natlan instead of Capitano. Mauvika would find herself dealing with an enemy that she can't defeat trough mere physical strenght, which I think could be a basis for some character study or growth. Like maybe Dottore releases a deadly virus trough Natlan and offers a cure in exchange for the gnosis, or maybe Pantalone uses his wealth to buy the loyalty of some tribes, putting them one against the other and disrupting the peaceful coexistence of the nation. Hell, maybe Capitano could still be there, and seeing his colleague's actions might lead to him doubiting his loyalty to the organisation.
I really hope they do better in snezhnaya, natlan as a whole just felt so out of place, I did pull for mavuika but the only reason I did is because I liked her design, but the thing is I wouldve liked mavuika as a character if she wasnt the pyro archon and instead someone else from another nation that couldve fit her design better. Her whole design felt so out of place with the whole biker theme that I fail to understand why they couldnt have just used the design she had in the trailer that released (with the ancient heros). They couldve done so much better with mavuika, and natlan as a whole , but instead it just ended up being so dissapointing and im afraid that snezhnaya will end up the same (and the tsaritsa too) but only time will tell ig
I hope so too! but the good thing is that Hoyoverse switches developer teams every Nation So we at least know that the same people who worked on Natlan won't work on Snezhnaya, so there's hope
There have been theories circulating where a lot of people genuinely believe the archon quest was rewritten and with the way it went I’m starting to believe it as well
They removed the Prologue chapter of the official Genshin comics in the Chinese website early last year (assuming when they started developing Natlan) so it checks out. That's the chapter with Venti and Venessa with some bits of Natlan lore.
I noticed instantly, it’s why I haven’t gone past act 1, since I feel like she’s just secretly soloing the story and is like “yeah we won because of me tbh”. I thought archons were supposed to be flawed lol. • Venti: extremely mysterious, will not tell the truth, cares little about his role as an archon, withholding information on purpose, but clears signs of empathy in situations like Dvalin and aiding when necessary. • Zhongli: basically “retired”, also cares little about his role, shows a lot of appreciation to his people and Adepti (saves Xiao), prefers to masquerade as a human like Venti. Similar “all knowing” vibes like Mauvika, but keeps it to himself or is very reserved. • Raiden: flawed to the extreme, major personal issues, humorous levels of lacking common sense, but was able to accept she needs to do better and looks toward future in the end. • Nahida: young archon, required assistance to overcome the crisis, cures her people of a severe disease, people don’t accept her so easily and she actively tries to build on that relationship through assistance. Gains invaluable information through skilful negotiation with Dottore, despite losing a Gnosis (which wasn’t even the Dendro one lmao). • Furina: literally dies, puppet is a scared flawed young clone with little information or power, gives up her powers to Neuvillette, acknowledges her death is the only option forward, puppet masquerades as the archon bearing the weight of hundreds of years of lying to “her people”. Eventually the puppet gains some form of normality as a regular person with a job. • Mauvika: BOSS, INFALLIBLE, *TIPS FEDORA* “I’VE ALREADY WON”, KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT TO DO, IS STRONGER THAN EVERYONE, COULD PROBABLY SOLO THE STORY WITHOUT YOU. I hope I like Mauvika when I continue the story though, I hope I’m wrong too.
Biggest plot hole in Natlan is..Do they remake the Statues of the 7 whenever a new Archon appears? 🤣 this is why this didn’t work for me at all..entire time I had that thought in my head. Also it would’ve made more for a compelling story if Natlan divided between Capitano and Mavuika’s plan tbh. It would make an interesting plot line (and If I am not mistaken something like that was shown in Chaska’s CQ aka tribe thingy). I hoped they would play into Mavuika’s overconfidence at some point and make her slip up since A LOT of things did change in 500 years and that mistake would split Natlan..but nah she ended up being perfect until the very end
Honestly this is a really big plot hole when you consider how previous nations handled it. In Inazuma, Makoto and Ei were twins, so the statues could have just been Makoto the whole time. In Sumeru, Rukhadevatta and Nahida looked identical after the former shrank in size, so again, the statues could have been both of them. Fontaine is the first time we see where a statue seems to have been changed when the role of Archon was passed over, because it's clearly Focalors and not Egeria. But we also never really see Egeria clearly enough to know whether they looked significantly different. But then what the heck, Natlan? Shouldn't the statue be Xbalanque then? If they change the statue for each Archon (which seems unrealistic with how the statues are clearly Celestial in nature), then Kachina wouldn't say it's a coincidence that it looks like Mavuika. Did they lose they ability to change how it looked because Mavuika was in stasis? So like, fuck all the Archons who came after her in that 500 year period, right??
@ ikr? 🤣 That was what I was thinking entire time. So everything all other archons did for 500 years (Including our goat Murata who didn’t even get a mention) just didn’t matter at all because Mavuika is biblically accurate and correct archon after all 💀 like bruh..The most annoying stuff I always hated in any anime is when EVERYTHING goes to the “plan”, like Teyvat changed a lot in 500 years my guy and so did the Abyss especially since we know what mimi-floras are a thing. Also how tf did Mare Jivari disappear 20 or so years ago when Bennett was found there as a baby and he is clearly not 20, or an adult for that matter 🤣💀
I actually think most of the statues were made 500 years ago. I don't think they were there before, like during the archon war. Mavuika was already the archon 500 years ago, Ei had a twin still was the archon during that time, Nahida, Venti, Furina, and Zhongli archon. Read somewhere they weren't there after the Archon war, but I'm not really sure
@@HerrscherOfFate-x8p it would make sense that Statues are made after Archon War ofcourse, because thats when “7 seats were opened up” (I forgot who said that it was probably Zhongus). Also thats when they supposedly got their respective Gnosis (Ik Archon war never happened in Sumeru, Deshret refused gnosis so Rukkha got it because she was last God alive in Sumeru, and Natlan obviously they didn’t have Gods only Dragons so far If I am not mistaken) Now when I think about it, it seems Celestia chopped up 3rd Descender after (or during Archon war) then 🤔 I mean they needed to make Gnosis out of their body…
This 100%. I really think that after saving Kachina from the Night Kingdom, they should've made her really skeptical about Mavuika's plan and talk to us about it. This would lead us to seeking out Capitano, who has different ideas. It would've been awesome to go around with Kachina helping the Captain form a better plan while Mavuika's continues to fall apart. While she's stuck in her ways, refusing to accept that her plan won't work, everyone will slowly turn to the Captain instead. Eventually we NEED Mavuika, and so she has to make a choice. Stick with her beloved plan that she's sacrificed so much for, or realize what a true leader needs to do and work with her people properly. This creates flaws and growth for her character in one fell swoop, while leaving less of the quest feeling scattered and unimportant. I'm glad I'm not the only one who wished to see more from the plan confrontation.
Out of all the archons, she is the ONLY one I don't like based on personality or backstory. Which sucks for me since she's visually my favourite character. Everything about her feels just like how saurusness feels about Act V of the Natlan Archon Quest: a dropped ball. She's ridiculously inoffensive; she feels like she was carefully designed and manufactured to be sold as a product and a product alone. To appeal to everyone without having anything unique about her. Aside from her involvement in the Archon Quest and the backstory she was given, I can't find one thing about her that stands out.
Ooh I think you hit on something there, for their ups and downs and power fluctuations the other archons do feel more like people than the "human archon" mauvika... How stoic she is, how she never struggles, how she "looks cool" while fighting essentially, will not lose to anyone etc. It sounds like selling an action figure more than writing a compelling story about a character, even most superheroes struggle and fail and have moments of defeat and weakness, no matter how they come back or win in the end, they still HAVE failures that affect them in some way. Mauvika felt like the blandest type of shounen writing to me and I wasn't here for it. I hadn't dug hard into her lore or stories but the idea that there's still relatively little there is so disappointing.
what she can do as a character honestly for me, more than makes up for her bland personality and everything negative in between. All i've been hearing in these echochambers literally just revolves around her personality and story, completely neglecting how powerful she is as a character and her positive traits that were also completely overlooked. While i do agree with some of them, i do think the hatred is way too forced sometimes to the point where the slander from some people makes it seem like she's a good-for-nothing character. Which is totally unfair for players who don't care much about her story and just wants to enjoy her as a character.
@@SinclairXOXO well ppl are still too biased with the natlan hate trend going on. I mean yes they have a reason to criticize natlan but i feel like it is an overreaction
@@SinclairXOXOso far I haven't seen anyone strongly hate her, most people just find her boring, or are disappointed. And her being powerful and positive wasn't overlooked - rather, it's part of the problem. She's so strong and perfect that it's hard to hate her, but it's also hard to really like her.
Honestly, Mavuika has taken the place of Raiden Shogun as my least favourite Archon so far just because of how poorly they handled her characterization. Raiden was a tyrant and harmed many people in her desire for Eternity, but she had multiple layers that showed the grieving and awkward woman beneath the stoic exterior. Her Tea Pot lines really helped me grow a soft spot for her. Mavuika is just too... flat a character. She doesn't seem to show the range of humanity, despite being a human-based Archon. Like you said, even when confronted by her dead sister, whom she loved dearly, she hardly shows an ounce of despair or grief at being reunited and than quickly separating from her again. In their effort to make her the 'ideal' Archon, the writers gave us a person we couldn't really connect to because she lacks any true flaws that we can sympathize with. But like you said, with her still carrying the Gnosis we might still get to see more of her story being told. I'm not sure if it will be enough, though.
I related to Raiden personally. It was a lot of personal factors, but the grief and almost bumbling around when not doing anything was DEEPLY humanizing for her to me and made her so believable. I couldn't imagine meeting anyone actually like Mavuika.
Raiden was a NEET with martial expertise and low EQ. She also didn't have good company to guide her especially regarding the nature of human beings. If Makoto lived, things would have been whole lotta different.
Like you said in your previous video, Natlan Archon quest is filled with missed opportunities. Mavuika characterisation is one and there's so many little things that adds up leaving a kinda "meh" result at the end. They did managed to kinda redeemed the Inazuma arc with Raiden second quest. Let's hope for the best (thou I tend not to with this game any more since it allows me to not being truly disappointed =P).
For Raiden, she was still extremely horribly-written and rushed to hell. The Inazuma Archon Quest and her First Story Quest were pure TRASH in writing and pacing. Her Second Story Quest was better and a step in the right direction where she TRIES to ATONE for her foolish actions and become a better person and leader for her people m, but it was only DECENT at BEST. There are STILL GLARING ISSUES plaguing her to this very day. She still NEEDS an ACTUAL redemption arc, not that sad and PATHETIC EXCUSE of an redemption "arc" that was her Second Story Quest (and her First Story Quest was FAR WORSE in writing, pacing, and tone, where it was just pure GARBAGE).
@@rickynguyen5108 honestly, as writer she still has that potential to be fixed as a character in her third quest. make her visits different islands and surprised to see how different everything and the result of her abandonment toward Inazuma. make her realise she's running away instead of trying to move on. that will make her personality as a warrior who doesn't know how to rule a nation and decide to be shut in because she's overwhelmed by archon job who used to be hold by makoto.
@mitacestalia7532 True. The huge problem is IF she even gets a Third Story Quest to her with exploring what you stated here to begin with, and considering what's going on right now (and how greedy and lazy the Genshin devs and higher-ups at Mihoyo are), I strongly DOUBT she'll even get that fix. Also, considering Mihoyo and the Genshin devs' tendencies to massively screw up their storytelling, her third Story Quest, if she even gets one, will be garbage in execution.
They haven't redeem Raiden yet. People want for a moment of compassion and actual consequences of Raiden's action as a tyrant instead of silly forced date + fighting the puppet for another 500 years just to show how cool and strong she is. I think no one cares how strong she is at that point except the players for marketing goal. Raiden would've been way better if she is hated by large portion of her people after the AQ then we get to see how she deal with it. Some thing that actually showed character development as a ruler. Raiden just seemed better NOW simply because we got someone worse. Can't let Inazuma slide that easily.
And why did it have to be a motorccycle anyways? Couldn't they have made some magical looking doodat that fits more into the whole aesthetic of the game? (Guess it fits her leather-clad look but thats about it) We do have machines and automatons in fontaine, but that was their schtick. Nathlan is somewhere trapped between dinosaurs and Motorcycles and all over the place and it's honestly just wierding me out. I haven't played the story yet, as i've just arrived in Fontaine storywhise. (Sumeru was a banger!)
@ The Rollerblades on Xilonen was already pushing it in my opinion. (Even if exploring like this is fun) They could have made her ride a Liepard or another bigger cat, considering she's supposed to be an Ozelot? That would work with the whole 'casually rolling up a mountain' thing, as cats are very good climbers. Heck, they could have went full tribal with their animals for Nathlan and it would have been absolutely awesome! Mavuika could have had a Phoenix, a dragon, some flaming Pegasus or whatever instead of a lame motorcycle. That said, i can't even believe that i'd ever call a motorcycle 'lame'...
I find it hard to believe that the people who wrote the deeply moving stories and characters of Sumeru and Fontaine could be the same people who wrote the mostly shallow Natlan stories and characters. As if Hoyo pulled the good writers from this project to work on other projects. (And the same re: character designers.) I'm not saying that's what actually happened, but that's what it feels like to me.
100%. It's like an entire different team did Natlan. Whoever they are, I hope they get reassigned back to ZZZ, and let the Fontaine writers and designers back before Snezhnaya is ruined
Apparently the sumeru Fontaine team was assigned to Snezhnaya, we do not realize how the cryo region story is to simply put out : Behemoth, their was no way they could do natlan then snezhnaya in such a short time
She's basically the MCU Captain Marvel of Genshin: 1. Powerful 2. Barely has any human flaws 3. Shallow character development 4. Aided by the "Power of Friendship" Decent but nowhere near as interesting as Nahida or Furina.
She feels like 12 year olds first ocs; will never make mistakes, tragic backstory is only for a decor, not internally woven, loved by everyone and their action isnt challenged to the point of changing/progressing said character Tldr; very shallow
@@raviolibirb8009 nah, mary sues channels narcissim and have to be the focus of the limelight at the expense of all the other characters. If she was a Mary Sue Traveller would not have been such a hero in Natlan. She's just op and boring.
She is not perfect, but she has no flaws and no quirks. I can see somewhat that being flawless was the intention but there's a lack of dynamism in the writing that kinda makes it all fall apart anyway. I understand that it's part of the meme too but the fact that they try and force it down your throat a bit, during her quest is a bit weird kinda, it exposes a flaw with Natlan somewhat and it's kinda how, it feels a bit confused/wonky, in terms of vision and direction. I think it's just how they wanted to go about making the direction they chose as digestible as possible.
@@icebear4325 nah, ei still has multiple, somewhat more distinct traits (or flaws). sucks at cooking, struggles to give up power, clueless about modern day stuff, etc. mauvika picked up painting and supposedly mastered it in ~1wk.
Being a human Archon is precisely why she can’t act like a human. Gods have people’s fate no matter how they act, she had to strip herself from her humanity to give people hope that she can defeat the Abyss - do something human could not.
I have suspicion they nerf the story to make her perfect, because it start to get weird at 5.2, like they want a brief patch to flesh out characters (like archon quest but a calm before storm moment) but even that so short!! This make me angry because it ties to how they waste Capitano's potential 1) bro WITNESSING the fall of khaenriah, we can GET INFO about it more, we can have a hangout/prep time with him, asking about the event 500 years ago & mavuika can join in & relate to him, as both are warrior that fought the unknown danger (this will make incels angry tho) . 2) Capitano is the only one challenging mavuika's plan, they have this good banter of a leader & co leader do in a lot of story, they are foil for each other, literal fire & ice for crying out loud, every moment with him can be utilized for this . 3) Capitano stole the story's emotional core for me, as he also a human (albeit with modified body), he fought the abyss & he cares about his people so much he want their soul to rest in peace, HE CHALLENGED A SHADE FOR THAT. I FEEL MAVUIKA IS NOT CONFLICTED ENOUGH TO SEE AN OUTLANDER DO THAT FOR HER COUNTRY & HERSELF, Yelan in interlude archon quest emote & show her fear when Xiao teleport them & about to self sacrifice himself, showing that she does not want to lose a team member from self sacrificing again, it's tied to her background of her carrying survivor guilt. Capitano just kinda mentioned briefly when- GIRL, thanks to his condition & sacrifice you are still standing, really pure luck, doesn't that mean a moment of reflection for you? Honorable or great warrior is not enough, you keep your life because fortunately there's another one want to take your place
I hate the Genshin kit trend where characters can have some of the cleanest looking normal attacks, only for their gameplay to not use them whatsoever. I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels the same way about Mavuika’s playstyle, especially after seeing how awesome she was in the fight against Capitano. To me, my feelings of Mavuika can be summed up by putting her character artwork alongside the other Archons. The other Archons are all characters. Mavuika is a function tied to her having a motorbike.
THIS.When you pull Mavuika you are pulling her BIKE,not her.How much of ideally challenged of genshin team to think that yeah Mavuika loves bikes,we should glue her ass in the bike for 3/4 of main attack animation,when in the story animation she look like raw god of war that slice,punch and kick enemy and capable of flying like superman?why not using badass movement like that?i mean they can copy dehya burst moveset,make it a switch state and controlable,giving it more badass sfx,vfx and bigger number dmg and she will be more like literal god of fcking war not god of bike
This is why I moved from Genshin. The characters don't feel like characters. In all honesty, how much of the characters we are using fully? I would say not much. Most of them are skill bots or ultimate bots. 9 out of 10 characters you rarely use their normal attack.
It feels like hoyo wants to compete the tech and gameplay of wuthering waves when in fact genshin has its own aspect that players love. Hoyo really failed to see this
Thisssss! You can tell Natlan was their experiment to find a way to freshen up the game due to the competition. I’ve been reading comments from the CN side and even they find natlan to be extremely lacking.
@@Josh-qt5zi yeah.. hoyo seems to think that making less cool male characters is going to make game more popular.. nope.. genshin became super popular even in west bcause it wasnt the usual waifu-only gacha game
Y'all its actually a joke!! There will be a quest in the upcoming patches which reveals a plot twist that Mavuika is a puppet like the Raiden Shogun and the reason she was perfect is because she's been programmed to be a war machine and we'll get to know what happened to the actual Archon in all this time. (sorry for the copium, i just can't believe the quality of writing in the AQ could drop sm after how promising Sumeru and Fontaine werE T_T )
I wish I liked the Natlan characters more, Mavuika included. So far I’ve only pulled for Kinich (Spiderman grapple go brrrr) but even then I mostly pulled because I liked his gameplay not because I fell absolutely in love with him the way I did with Lyney. Here’s hoping the next region will be better
Pulled some characters out of boredom (u-u). Interesting gameplays so it's primo worth. I am not happy with Mavuika and Citlali as characters, but boy they help my account atleast..... I need to get Xilonen for Wrio team next.
What is really frustrating about Kinich is that his backstory is really good. But in game, that backstory is never ever mentioned, and Kinich barely has any screen time in the quests. What a shame
Kinich was barely present in the AQ, it was all about Kachina and Mualani, and it's hard to really like someone who appears on screen for such a short time 😥 I'm pretty sure even Chasca's sister (a mere NPC) had more screen time than him So he's the only male 5-star we got in 2024, and they basically pushed him out of the AQ to glorifiy the female characters, which is so disappointing. He has a good backstory, they could have used that, but instead they just ignored him completely. He doesn't even appear a lot in his own story quest...
I honestly feel as if they had the whole quest unplanned except the self sacrifice of capitano and they just tried to make everything lead up to that moment, the fact that they made it poorly is another thing entirely
I really get annoyed when people say natlan felt like typical shounen because even shounen mangas have more depth. Even the one like black clover and demon slayer if you chose to get invested do not break your suspension of disbelief the way natlan does.
The world building had holes in Natlan. Not just the tech, the effects of war was not present in the open world. Very inconsistent and Mavuika’s character building was done haphazardly through self exposition and game external media (animation). Also, it did not build on the information we had about Natlan pre version 5. You can say they only had an idea at the start of development but the standard for other nations wasn’t there. Being OP is a marketing tactic to compensate with the characterization and story imho. I hope they go back to basics otherwise it’ll be another Game of Thrones.
@@normalbirid79it’s basically biggest miss in TV history. It started off as an amazing story due to its characters and lore of the world and by the last two seasons all characters were butchered by stupidly bad writing
while I agree with you but it really rubs me the wrong way how people have such a wrong perception of natlan's technology. Natlan as a nation isnt as technologically or academically advanced as sumeru or fontaine but natlan is where multiple dragon civilisations existed and they had tech for even space travel. Moreover only xilonen has made only a handful of things from the things they excavated , that too runs using phlogiston only.
They even almost answered the question at 6:38 in Chasca’s quest. Clearly they thought about how having this special tech could assist regular humans/humans who couldn’t fly with saurians specifically, but then it was just kind of… dropped after that.
because ughm, bird only let you fly on them when you are skilled??? and uhhh not like they sticked to an exhausting process of extracting fuel from live specimens when there was the more complex but still implied to be viable option of not using them, and even then doing it via birds but not in exhausting manner must be an option, yeah lets suppress attempt to make something quite useful widespread because uhhh reasons and its bad to hurt animals and stuff
@@tachikomagaming2451 Meanwhile all other nations specially monstadt without horses lol at least sumeru has their charge animals and fontaine ships because mostly water, but natlan unless you are the mc or have a vision seems there is only hot air balloon which probably arent many of them
I hate that the writers have some very obvious pet characters that never get called out in the story. Furina got nasty glares after the Poisson disaster, but characters like Arlecchino or Mavuika just get nothing but praise. I wouldn't dislike these characters so much if at least the narrative acknowledged whenthey did something wrong.
Right remember during the sumeru saga how nahida was constantly insulted and belittled by the sages because they thought so little of her and she herself constantly self ridiculed cause she thought she couldn't even save her people, that subtle nuances made me like her more. Mavuika is a strong person and that's literally it
Turning Arlecchino into "mOrAlLy GrAy" when she's clearly been described as evil by Childe was probably the 2nd worst writing decision. Only to be beaten by this disastrous region
HUGE AGREED The worst part is that, even if there are bad rumours and nasty glares, it’s not shown - it’s talked about in their soulless texts of dialogues of NPCs (like those two fatui in front of Mond waypoint after any AQ or just any fatuus in general in cities upon asking about things transpired in the nation they’re stationed in). Like. At least do this during major quests!!! It’s not like we aren’t forced to walk incredibly slowly while listening to characters and p*mon yap, put on some visuals and show crowds whispering to each other with their text bubbles!!! Bot for hoyo thats really too much to ask for 😔
@heisansberg2347 I'm pretty sure it's because of the Chinese censorship. I don't think ur allowed to have a playable character that's evil (correct me if I'm wrong). It's probably why I didn't like her character, even tho she was my most anticipated when the fatui trailer came out. It bothers me how she's liked by the traveller and other fontaine characters. She runs an orphanage that basically churns out soldiers for a highly radical and violent military group 😭 HOW R WE JUST SKIPPING OVER THIS!
It's so ironic that Mavuika feels less human than any archons we know. I feel like Hoyo spent too much time designing her motorbike and forgot to write the character.
In neuvilettes story quest, melusienes were outcast of society but in the flashbacks, the tech remains the same as is does in game. What im trying to suggest is Fontaine has used the same tech for around 500 years, and now is just introducing it to other regions, so why does xilonen and the phlogistion create more futuristic tech than Fontaine??? Yea it’s “dragon tech” but the dragons we know of in game, dvalin, azdaha, apep , morax , neuvilette , aren’t creating crazy futuristic tech. Khan’riea uses technology similar to the dragon stuff, a bit clunky robots with letters engraved in them to give the power of logos. In lore, knan’ria was VERY advanced but why does natlan in lore an underdeveloped technological nation over power it? Yes the fatui have guns and stuff, but the house of the hearth comes from Fontaine and could of easily used the tech to make the fatui guns, also imo, the fatui use elemental materials found in the world, like the electro hammer guy could just be using electro crystals on a hammer. This is a long rant, but i needed to get it out, i dont read much into the lore, but natlan is just so much different then what info we had on it…..
You're not alone on hating her. From what I heard, Natlan hasn't been doing good in CN and JP as well, which has to be due to the oversaturation of female characters and the lack of male characters. You'd think that in a nation of "war", you'd get more male characters or a decnt 1:3 male:female ratio but apparebtly, all the men are dead or in the kitchen. Notice how the entire story was written in such a away that it killed off all the major male characters so they find an excuse to not make'em playable, while the only 3 Natlanese men we've got so far, one's just a kid and the other 2 a 4 star, with one of them being a doctor who just seems to have an ok design. Meanwhile, Capitano's "dead" (I know he'll be back but still), Xbalanque being ressurected is unknown and Xiuhcoatl (Pyro Sovereign) being reborn into a human form is just a distant memory, all guys who could've made tons of money for Mihoyo but instead, they were all used to glaze Mavuika to infinity as if she wasn't already perfect. Natlan was definitely rewritten in the last minute by Da Wei to glaze tf outta his favorite waifu Himeko expy (Mavuika) on the expense of all the strong male characters, and now the reception's been so bad that they had to back-peddle and release Capitano teasers way before his time of release to damage control. Meanwhile, a fan-made music video of Och-Kan's praises of Xbalanque was turned into a song in CN and got more views than Mavuika's trailer, along with the Cap beating her by 20 ranks in JP character popularity polls last yr, despite losing to her in his debut match People all around the world are geting a waifu fatigue, and you know it's bad when one of your 2 most reliable home markets don't wanna pull for'em We really lost Capitano, Xbalanque and Xiuhcoatl to some girl who farts out an elemental burst (She points her butt towards the screen while bursting and she's anemo. Anemo being air. Do the math). Sure I don't mind her (Yeah I'm freaky) but I didn't wanted to lose 3 GOATed men in exchange of getting her Sorry for the long rant, but I think Natlan will keep going down and losing sales if they don't pick their game up and bring up some hype male units.
To be fair, I do like Ororon. I don't think his design is anything crazy but he's nice. He's pretty sheltered and naive, but it's in a funny and endearing way, as opposed to a blithering manchild way, you know? Definitely think there should've be more important playable male characters for Natlan though. Genshin being a husbando AND waifu game is one of the main draws lmao
Don’t even know what male characters there are to look forward to, besides Ifa and that Mondstadt boy. No more male archons, Dottore is iffy, where is The Captain. Hope they actually do something with Varka.
I got a good laugh fron the last paragraph, lol thanks dude But yea, hoyo should've realized they're not handling a niche waifu-only game (hi3) bc genshin's already too mainstream. Their most popular characters have males and that proves male can sold well. Heck, they should've get a wake up call seeing LADS scoring higher revenue for these past months
“Yeah I’m freaky”- the admission is crazy 🤣🤣 I agree- female players want more male characters but I’m sure male players want more male characters too, even though I don’t fully trust them with the task yet. Wrio imo was peak at what they could achieve with male characters. And Capitano’s entire design and backstory is far too badass for them to keep him in limbo.
You know it's not because natlan has futuristic tech, for me the actual problem is that it doesn't blend in with the rest of the world and its world building
Yes. Usually the futuristic tech is from ancient civilizations or is limited (like in Fontaine). In Natlan Xialonen builds modern tech like it's nothing.
@@DiaryofNatalieRose Hello there, speed reader! Did you know that Natlan used to be inhabited by an ancient civilization of dragons that wielded advanced tech? Did you also know Xilonen studied the ancient tech they left behind and is especially adept at her blacksmith job because she is well-versed in said tech?
Agree with that. It's aesthetic issue for me, not gonna lie. Did they really have to go for "modern" bike instead of old model ones. That'd blend in better. Or maybe futuristic ones with wheels that aren't connected to the main body. That fits with the rest of the old civilization tech we've seen so far. But instead we get "modern", and that ruins it for me
@@EnderBroadcast and these dragons "advanced tech".... were motor-bikes? why would a dragon ride a motorcycle? in teyvat? in NATLAN? like there are no highways anywhere and the terrain is never flat. Like what?
Nah, if anything, the little we've seen of Skirk already shows her with MORE personality ,lol. The way she just yeeted Childe to the void was peak comedy xD xD
I felt empty when the whole squad got saved by Mauvika after getting struck inside the night kingdom during 5.1. Like there was no risk at all if you know that Mauvika will save you no matter what bruh... What i loved about Fontaine before Natlan is that characters like Melus and Silver were just side characters we thought of as comedic relievers but when the news about them dying hit us, oh I still get the chills how sad I got and thinking of Navia having no one in the world to support her. Man now I'm sad😭. In Natlan we saw how soo many people died due to our choices but we got no time to mourn about them, even now we get to know how we killed and could've saved so many if took the right choices which was neverrrr told or even made to feel in game. The only time I felt remotely emotional is when Chyuchu died and even that was foreshadowed so many fucking times it felt fake.
Regarding your questions about the lore: no, she was not conscious during these 500 years, and as such did not have all this time to prepare herself. This is shown by a few things in the world, including her not remembering her sister's deeds, or locals finding strange that Mavuika looked just like the statue from the Archon of 500 years ago, among others. As such, she is designed as having become perfect at nearly everything in the span of the maybe 30 years she had to actually live, which is indeed quite questionable. I've read almost all the lore available since 5.0 and have found no explanation given for this, either. EDIT: to clarify, the knowledge that the Sacred Flames grants to the Archon is described as "knowledge and memory of this land," by Mavuika, which, given the context, described information (mostly about the inital rules of Natlan and how the Pilgrimage works) rather than practical skills. On another topic, I'd like to thank you for being one of the few who do speak out on the matter! The Mavuika hype train has had a tendency to drown out the valid criticism on version 5 lately, and it's refreshing to see that some still expect a high standard from the game. Really appreciate your video essays for their honesty and accuracy.
She wasn't fully conscious but it definitely wasn't a blip and she's in the future. Also the sacred flame grants the knowledge and experience of the Land and Previous Pyro Archons to the current one
I’m not sure if this was in the game, though there probably was some detail about it, but on the wiki the sacred flame serves as a data bank of sorts?, which allows new pyro archons to obtain a vast amount of knowledge memories from previous archons and the land itself. While she was competent, I don’t think she was perfect, which unfortunately doesn’t really come across in game.
@eden8498 I remember that as well, and would have liked to see Hoyo explore just how badly that could mess up your head. Pretty much all of her emotional dissonance could be explained in a satisfying way by tying it back to, "congratulations, you now have a bunch of emotional connections to a enough dead people to fill a stadium, have fun trying to relate to regular people!"
@@MorgenPeschkeyea, this is exactly what I was hoping too and I'm really disappointed they didn't go there because it would actually make perfect sense and be a little, well, humanizing. Something that could engender empathy in the way Citlali's purposeful aloofness is explored in her story quest.
@@MorgenPeschke This would've been so SO good, and it would've made her a much more compelling character to me imo. They should've shown a bit more emotional turmoil, more mental dissonance. She's supposed to be "The human Archon", and yet, she feels like the least human of them all...
welcome to natlan (disneyland) nation of war and dragons based on ancient meso america theme, we have : -Dude who has pixel pet, loli who ride a beyblade, cowboy elf who floats with giant gun, girl who use roller skate and use DJ board -Archon that wear latex and ride motorcycle somehow and actually a mary sue -dragons? more like basic pokemons -wartorn nation and tribes suffering? more like sunshine and rainbow and everyone is partying 24/7 -power of friendship
i genuinely keep forgetting that mavuika is ultimately just a human. with furina, you could never forget she’s human-her humanity is a core part of her character and her role in the plot of fontaine, take that away and her story would fall apart. mavuika, on the other hand, feels entirely different. if the next patch suddenly revealed that she’s not just a human but some heir of a dragon, no one would bat an eye. there’s nothing inherently human about her, and her being human adds nothing to the story. she wasn’t torn by human fears or desires, her human body never lacked strength, and her human mind showed no flaws in reasoning - there’s simply nothing that ties her to being human in a meaningful way.
@@MrSquishy0 It has nothing to do with Furina being an archon , it's just the character writing quality that has taken a complete shift not just the archon who is the main focus but the entire cast , Natlan as whole is major downgrade in character writing aspects
Your critiques are all totally valid. I had a LOT of problems with Citlali too. We're told she's experienced, but shown immaturity, as though 25 year old writers and VAs struggled to imagine a long life and any wisdom it might bring.
the problem is that they know how to write wise characters, see zhongli, kazuha, ayato even hutao, they just chose not to do so, and I have no idea why, if they wanted to go that way there has nothing to stop them from making citlali young and inexperienced while also having a lot of talent
To the same end, a lot of wisdom comes from interaction, the people that we consider wise have spoken to lots of people on innumerable occasions; citlali is very clearly a hermit who cuts everyone off to protect herself from grief with the traveler being the first since her friend from so long ago that it took an entire questline to find out one her life's greatest achievements because no one could verify it. This would lead to certain immaturities when interacting with people a lot more closely than you've been used to for at least about a normal human life or 2. That said. she does seem calm when the stakes are high and the cards are down but I do agree that it would feel mice is she actually had some words of wisdom to impart in those moments, unless she did and I just missed them
While valid, it’s not Venti, Furina, Miko, or what we’ve seen from Alice radiates maturity either. They really just do and act as they please and then act accordingly when it’s time to do their job before continuing their hobbies.
@@ApatheticNomad That's an excellent point. She's supposed to be socially stunted. This could have been conveyed in English with better casting. I love Skyler Davenport as March 7th, but they sound lost as Citlali.
Haven’t watched the video yet but I already wanted to write a comment. Mavuika feels so… perfect for a human. TOO perfect, with „no“ flaws or anything.. Like others are saying, she feels like a piece of cardboard. She doesn’t feel human at all.
Made me think who among the “boring” characters we have are even more interesting than Mavuika, an archon: Ayato? Albedo? Alhaitham? Cyno? All massively competent characters but there’s mystique, humor and personality. Even Raiden has her quirks. I’m happy for those who like Mavuika. At least they’re not disappointed. 😅
Im sorry but as an albedo simp, seeing albedo categorized as boring is kinda funny to me No offense, i get his character isnt for everyone. But to me he's genshin's no.1 most interesting character personality and lore-wise (Dont forget he eats spider and has dysfunctional family across the teyvat map lol)
And people thought i was wrong for thinking the quests were kinda boring. I held off hoping the final chapter was where all the interesting twists and turns come in and nothing. Mauvi was flawless, almost no struggle or depth. Even the animated stories made no meaningful contribution to her character, you could skip it and miss nothing vital in the story or character development. She didnt even seem all that sad when her people died. Natlans story was just, we are at war with the abyss and we push them back in a final showdown with no struggles, the end.
Did we play the same missions? Natlan was losing and had been losing the entire time. It took all of Natlan, The Fatui, led by the #1 Harbinger and the main character to win.
@oojimmy52 Yes Natlan was losing, that is how any story goes, things are bad and the new hero on the block comes in to save the day, mr.to-my-knee oh sorry i meant Tumaini.
i was waiting for the twists as well, there were so so so many interesting things mentioned at the start of the quest that could have been developed into one final huge plot twist.
I actually liked the first acts of the AQ in Natlan, but I was disappointed by Act 5. We all knew what would happen, before playing the quest. We all knew Mavuika was never - at any moment - in danger because Capitano would die in her place. No surprise, no suspence. She doesn't even struggle. I kept hoping for some crazy plot twist that would blow my mind, like it happened in Fontaine, but it never happened. The quest gave us exactly what we knew would happen. No more, no less. It was like watching a movie I had seen before. It was good, but no surprise. And somehow I expected more than just a mere "good" from the finale of an archon quest..
The entire storyline of Natlan made Capitano a more beloved character than Mavuika herself Not only does he look cooler, but he has a better story arc than her
Something I want to add in terms of Mavuika’s design is that every single (literally each and every) Natlan character has tattoos on their bodies, feathered accessories, patterns, fun and interesting colors, charms, and if they are female, at least one braid in their hair. Maybe it was me making expectations out of nowhere, but Mavuika has NONE of those. What a missed oppurtunity. She could still have the flame hair, but the biker outfit feels so so so out of place.
I remember doing her trial and being confused when she didn't have the night soul glow other characters did or glowing tattoo like markings. She seems super bland visually when its just her hair going
@ Disliked her in the earlier quests - I get what they were going for, but for me someone having trauma doesn't justify them lashing out at others. Definitely a MUCH better-written and more rounded character than the others, but just one I disliked a fair bit. Her tribal quest was fun though, and definitely did enough to make me empathise with her more. Gonna be pulling on her rerun though, rather than spending primos right now!
The type of characters that go simply “I’m so cool, I’m perfect and everything I do is right, my only flaw is my own awesomeness” have always run me off, they feel so unnatural, and give me the 12 year old author on Wattpad self insert vibes (here you see I hate Rey Palpatine and Kiriko from Ow2) “But ackshually she has flaws…” yeah ofc, and by the power of the mighty Hoyo plot holes they don’t count nor matter.
Also can we talk about how shes supposed to be THE ARCHON OF WAR??? When I look at her, I see nothing that screams war. I was so excited, thinking we could get a badass warrior, thinking we could get a bloodthirsty brute. But nah, we get a motorcycle mary sue. 🤦
great video. I feel exactly the same way about her, it's actually refreshing to see so many of the character problems highlighted in such a concise video. Natlan genshin feels to me like a victory lap, the devs think they can no longer fail and are throwing wild ideas at the wall thinking anything they do will always work. Mavuika suffers from most of Natlans problems but packaged inside a single unit.
I never thought I'd say that, but i was dissaponted when Mavuika didn't die. Like i was expected it'll be more... meaningful? If she's so human, she needs to accept her end, as a hero and etc..but no, we got Capitano's rest(let's say) which is wat interesting than Mavuika. At first, i was curious about her, but now i understand she's too perfect. She's literally good at everything, and her fears like in short stories feel..like s joke, really. I can understand other archons cause they have human side despite of their God powers, what has Mavuika? God powers and.. boring personality. It's respectful that she treats others like friends, but i still have nothing to like her or dislike her
The thing is, capable and kind, nearly OP and perfect archon/character can be interestingg We literally have gojo satoru the perfect fighter/mentor somewhat that is portrayed to be very powerful. Yet he doesn't feel one dimensional bc the author gave him several traits that humanizes him (being very childish, a bit of a douchebag, and super annoying towards ppl around him)
Mavuika could have been very ambitious with lofty ideas (like Itto) but they might have run out of adorable flaws 😅 everything is taken so they just gave her the messiah complex
Even in Genshin, you have characters like Zhongli and Neuvilette who fit a similar mold. They are immensely powerful, have upstanding character, and yet are way more interesting as characters compared to Mavuika.
@@XylonLionheart neuvi's writing was pretty emotional. I wasn't interested that much in him during the first AQ (understandably so) but neuvi's characterization also succeed due to his dynamic with focalors-melusine and navia. On top of that he's given the silly traits which we all like, rating teyvat's waters and the story of rain with hydro dragon being sad. It's all these elements that are missing from mavuika tbh. Dynamic character relationship + silly traits for the cherry on top
@@MrSquishy0 ppl hate gojo bc he's annoying (as far as what I stumbled upon in that fandom) so that's a testament that his writing is effective Like furina who was supposed to tick you off due to her incompetence.
the reason i skipped her was mostly the whole having too have natlan characters for her to work properly i understand she doesn't need them but as someone who hasnt pulled for a single natlan character it just not a good feeling.
Seems like the Natlan characters weren't selling too well, if they have to push them this hard... on top of making many Natlan fights unbearable if you don't have one, with those annoying mimic enemies. "You can Barbara auto attack its shield 5000 times, or you can just pull for a Natlan character ;)))" 😐
@@ET-tu3gp Is funny that they were doing something similar in fontaine but wasnt that strong to be annoying, you could use furina and make a lot of old characters viable and stronger like noelle and many healers, same in fontaine with dendro, you arent forced to play them together, old characters get buffed too, but in natlan you just dont (also enemies with pneuma and ousia mechanics are completely doable ignoring that)
@@ET-tu3gp nope, they did pretty bad, mav included, you will be shocked to learn that the Citlali/Mav banner did worse in CN than goddamn Xianyun launch, I won't even bring other archons in this discussion because it looks A LOT worse for her.
@@ET-tu3gp Or the one boss that makes a pillar. Have fun getting up there, because bows don't work for some god forsaken reason. Not everybody has a Venti/Wanderer or one of the Nathlan crew. I was trying to grind for Xilonens materials and couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how to get up these blasted pillars. So, i had my level 40-ish Xilonen rollerblade up and hope she won't bite the dust.
@@Aurirang Same for me, the thing one-shot my characters multiple times before I resigned myself to putting level 50-ish Mavuika on the team to get up there (╥﹏╥)
I think for me the most polarizing thing about her is that despite seeing her fight with her claymore and bare hands, her entire kit and gameplay is based around the bike. The bike not only feels out of place in teyvat, but in her own design
I don't think it was the motorbike, itself, that threw me off. It was the fact that the story does not include nearly anything of the culture of motorbike enthusiasts that I suspected was who they were trying to attract by adding the motorbike in the first place. It would have been better if she built it completely herself or if the bike appeared more often than just a cameo in Act V and her character story.
Genshin character writting must be very hard and exausting,as writers are forbiden from doing certain things with characters (like giving them love intrest aside from hinting they're traveler fangirl/boy or breaking the status quo,or giving them negative traits) Another thing is i cant wait til Mavuika concept arts leak,and it turns out they were way more unique and intresting
fuck are you saying? you wanted a conquescador design for Mavuika? that'd be the most racist thing they could ever do. Making an Archon the colonizer??
Have you never seen the toreador/carnival versions of Mavuika? I was a big fan of the toreador design and very bamboozled when she was finally revealed to be a biker chick.
The curse of being a gacha game, I fear. Actually no, I'm sure other gacha games have characters who have romantic relationships with characters outside the player. I just can't help but notice that this is a trend among Mihoyo's games recently.
@@StummerVogel It was a bit weird, though. HYV are already pretty terrible at representing the cultures Natlan is inspired by correctly (colorism etc etc), but the theme they were going for for Mavuika is literally a Spansih/colonial/conquistador design in a region mostly based on Latino America and Africa...
@@usalisa3656 I agree, it seems Natlan is supposed to be based on those regions without colonization so Spanish influence wouldn't fit what they're going for. Before it was revealed that the pyro archon is originally human, I was actually wondering if the Spanish influences in the concept design would represent how the archons are usurpers of the original rulers of Teyvat, but that didn't end up being the case.
dont mind her design but her personality just feels so bland to me and it feels like hoyoverse desperately wants to sell her ( ik they are a company so revenue is important to them but for her they seem to do so much)
All the haters may go to hell. Mavuika is one of the best character of the game. After Furina, she is the most lovable Archon. She is always ready to sacrifice herself for her people. She has the perfect personality for a perfect Archon. She is the ray hope in darkest time. Mavuika ❤
@@chrisevans9882 This video and comment section is not the place for a comment such as this. Because you're worshipping this character because of your personal tastes and perceptions everyone else is wrong?
@@dovemaidenWhy not there vocalizing there opinion. Just because it's not the concensus here doesn't mean it should be said I think a bit of positivity in a (Let's be honest) overly negative section is good Honestly what people need is hindsight. People are fresh from the experience and are reaching out for negativity It happens every year
Her character was way too reliant on "the bit" of her being "Genshin's Himeko" without understanding why people actually liked the character Himeko in the first place all while constantly shoving in the idea of Honkai Impact 3rd's "Final Lesson" is going to happen to her despite it not happening which is weird cuz it's made by the same company... Also, now that you mention it, it really does irk me that the backstories to the futuristic weapons that the playable Natlan cast use aren't ancient relics that they found and were made by the ancient draconic race localized in Natlan nor inspired from blueprints made by said race, instead they were all just gadgets made by Xilonen without the need of influence cuz she's just that good at blacksmithing... which is the most disappointing wastes of potential to lore I've ever seen
I…. I really wanna redesign mavuika… she’s just.. she doesn’t feel like an archon. Edit: I started redesigning her immediately after I posted this comment lol
@@joslin4384same + she also looked like someone who is active from Natlan (similiar style of clothing to NPCs, not this “Natlan’s got talent” show of every playable dressed as if they are from a different game entirely, not even just from a different nation of teyvat, lol)
For me, mauvika doesnt feel like an archon. I actually forgot she was the god of specifically war. Each archon has a divine ideal that they worship/obssess over, often to a fault. The opinions than an archon has about their ideals are rather unique compared to the rest of the cast. Mauvika doesnt obssess about war the same way venti obssesses about freedom. She wants to end a war. And her opinions on war are the same as the natlan characters, traveller and the player. Its immediately understandable why someone would care about stopping a war to help their people, but its not obvious why someone would care about contracts or eternity. One idea i have for the pyro archon's ideal of war is justification/recompense. After watching her people suffere, losing her friends and family and being caught up in her 500 year plan mauvika is desperate for success and cat handle defeat. When she sees someone be wronged she pushes them to take retribution. She finds battles exhausting but she goes over the top in each one cuz its her belief that she's fighting until one day theres peace. Eventually learns that the abyss cant be fully stopped which she takes terribley whilst denying the reality of the situation. Her story would revolve around how she feels entitled to recompense after suffering for so long but having to grapple with reality that her hardwork and pain wont be fully rewarded and that she has to find peace even though hard times are never gone for good.
They could also make her flawed in her obsesion to win and save everyone, being reckless that maybe she doesnt care about being healthy and make it out alive, I mean she lost everything she cared about already so wouldnt be that weird she thinking in self sacrifice, could have made a emotional epic scene where friends and mc convince her to not die and do it together learning that doesnt need to do it all by herself, or make her go all in about the sacrifice and mimic some honkai himeko you know what scene, people would have loved it
The story and characters were bland, but the exploration and the region is amazing. Ochkanatlan in particular. To me natlan Is still the third best nation after sumeru and fontaine
Also: Mavuika saved her parents marriage...I'm not even kidding. Read her character stories. She also was so "wise" that her dad literally gave up on teaching Hine, her sister, and just told her to go to Mavuika since she was wayyyyyyyy smarter than Daddy. Not even joking dude. This character is just...yeah. Her story quest is a glaze fest as well with Xbalanque meat riding her as well. Like it's actually so much undeserved garbage. Her "flaw" is that she "sacrifices too much" which is Mary Sue trait 101.
The most underwhelming Archon for me. I expected more, I wanted more, and I got so much less. She feels weak as a character overcompensating in the kit power for lack of depth. There were so many things that I wanted from the pyro archon and I feel like they underwhelmed and missed the mark. Yeah I can see where people would find her visually attractive but she lacks depth and I don't know if that was planned or if it happened by accident. Did I pull for her? Yes I did, but only because I had the wishes, was almost at guarantee hard pity and she reminds me of Fenghuang of Vicissitude Fu Hua from HI3 even though she's not an alternate to her either. Mavuika just doesn't hit the right touches for me, and I think you touched a lot of why. She really was very Mary Sue - she lacks depth and is the most underwhelming archon of the lot. That makes me sad - the archons have always been something more, something larger and yet here she without any flaws and unable to seemingly do any wrong. There is no failing when Mavuika is involved. Moment of truth? I didn't think she was going to perish in the archon quest - I called that someone would take her place because they never gave her any consequences throughout the story. Everything poured off her like water off a ducks back. I had no need to worry for her because everything seemed to work out effortlessly. She didn't do much of anything just waited for her heroes to wake up while mastering every and any skill. Mind you part of that "I had no fears for her" came from their inability to build any tension by 1) not giving her a flaw and 2) not giving any high stakes pressure moments as they went through. She was the embodiment of the arc - flat with moments of actions and emotion, but mostly just walking and sitting around and doing nothing and not being able to emotionally invest because there seems to be no consequences for the perfect archon ever for anything. "She made her sacrifice and now all is forgiven and she is all powerful" - that's not how good tales are written but you do you HoYo.
Actually same. Ever since i found out that the pyro archon was going to be the god of war, i had so many cool ideas for who they could be. They missed the mark on everything
For a lot of people genshin is an adventerous, beautiful lore heavy game with an interesting story that is pretty inclusive towards all kinds of players due the variety of things that you can do which i believed also resulted in it having more popularity than any other game in its genre (i was always pushed off by other gachas for how non inclusive and low quality they felt - by non inclusive i meant oversaturated and disoriented UI, the hardcore gameplay / niche communities , gooner culture etc but these days it feels like genshin is becoming more and more like them, the entirety of natlan archon quest felt like a sales advertisement for the characters it had no substance whatsoever, things that were important were rushed to finish off quickly and the things that had no importance where sooo dragged it just made me feel there was actually no story to be told here, just cooking stew to advertise these characters and get the region over with. there was no important lore apart from the sky break thingy which was just a 1 second moment which wasnt mentioned ever again.
I find that those who write the lore and those who write the actual story quest are vastly different. Reading lore about characters is like reading a Greek epic while story quest is like a 6 graders blog post.
Exactly, I'm there with you lol.
They actually have different writters for different fields. For example despite world quest still tied to main quest/lore, they have different writer for main quest and world quest. So, it's possible they have different writer for lore too
Really that bad huh?
Yeah, the lore team is just made of much better writers. The lead story writer just isnt as good as people under him, and the game suffers a looot from it.
That's a great comparison lol
What's worse to me is that thanks to her, the new fatui that's coming to Natlan supposes no threat anymore, she beat the first, she has never lost against anyone or anything. So why should we care?
"The first three have powers comparable to that of the gods" now lacks significance
I have hopes that if she comes across dottore as the second harbinger sent to natlan to fetch the gnosis, he would bring up a real threat to natlan that even killing him won't work bc he has other segments so she has to agree to his conditions and give him the gnosis
@@weeewohoo1685 Does he have new Segments? He lost pre-existing ones as a trade off for the electro Gnosis from Nahida.
@@Aurirang the one making the deal with nahida was a segment so we know for sure theres atleast the real him and that segment
That's exactly what I thought!
I'd argue that there is nuance to that statement rather than just taking it at face value. Notice the use of the word "power" which is different from strength.
Capitano is the strongest in terms of physical strength but I always had the belief that he will lose to Dottore. That's because of his moral integrity and honorable status does not work against Dottore's scheming and moral scruples. I would even argue the Arlecchino's style is the best counter to Capitano but I digress.
You also need to factor how each Harbinger has different approach to achieve their goal. Capitano approached Natlan head on; Dottore schemed behind the scenes in Sumeru; and Arlecchino got the gnosis through diplomatic means.
All in all, whoever Harbinger they substitute to get the Gnosis will have an enetirely different approach than Capitano and there are plenty of ways to get Natlan's Gnosis.
She is so perfect that the game is afraid to make her not good at something
There is a short text that details that Mavuika couldn´t paint, she was perfect at everything else except art, so she decided to try it after the war
She mastered it in a day.
THAT is the problem with this character, the "human archon" feels like an inhuman robot that is programmed to do everything
The one that really gets me the more I think about it is that her parents had a rocky and unhappy relationship, but then Mavuika was born and their relationship was saved!!!
Legitimately, adding a baby into a failing relationship is the worst idea possible - adding sleep deprivation and loud high pitched wailing into an already tense situation is NOT going to end well. Bizarre decision to have that in her story.
@@raptoriit’s all to paint her as this perfect savior, which ironically makes it very easy to dislike her
People don’t like being forced to like a character, it’s why every other archon is leagues more popular (and made way more money lol)
Every other archon has a flaw, and something that makes them likeable
Venti is a homeless drunk but also truly believes and completely trusts in the idea of freedom
Zhongli is detached and lacks tact, but he’s wise and knowledgeable
Raiden is a social recluse that goes tyrant mode on a whim, but she’s adorable when you get to know her
Nahida is inexperienced and not taken that seriously but kind and wise for being so young
Furina is introduced as an antagonistic idiot, but the entire story causes you to like her
Mavuika is just
Perfect
There is nothing else to her
She’s an amazing leader that is never questioned
Her plans succeed even when they are completely terrible (and fail)
She’s lauded and adored
She has mastered every craft and skill, just because she could
There is nothing to like about someone so perfect, nothing to relate to
Nobody is perfect, nobody can relate to her
You know it’s bad when the character running with the archon makes up around 33% of sales
Don't forget how she can solve puzzles faster than the creators could make new one's. Like Why.
@Goblinhandler on your second paragraph. That is me with Paimon. I hate her. But the game tries to force me to like her
OH MY GOD. You said it perfectly. My thoughts exactly. I couldnt have said it better@Goblinhandler
17:30 honestly having a shapeshifter villain that DOESN'T try transforming into the heroes friends is kinda crazy to me. It's like the most basic shapeshifter trope and they didn't even include that
Honestly i was confused why i didnt get the sense of "empathy" With mavuika like i did with Furina. I mean they both had to sacrifice something, a huge part of their life.
But now i know. Furina actually cries and feels tortured by this sacrifice, while Mavuika is just "yeah, this is needed for Natlan". I mean, sure just passing by Hime would just be easy, but when Mavuika has to "kill her own Sister", it would make the story much better. It would be AS memorable AS focalor's death and Mavuika will have her flaws, and we get a well written character. Thats it lmao
Since she sacrificed all they could also have done another sacrifice arc where she is convinced that she only exists to save her nation, and being reckless she is convinced that she will sacrifice her life without hesitation to win (like 2 previous archon but this time being the main person itself), would have been cool the power of friendship there trying to stop her and help do it together without dying, but she is just perfect and all works out (literally could add a scene when she is struggling and mc saves her)
@@asoret I'm super confused on Mavuika's SQ for that reason. Why did the Traveler ask Mavuika that one question in the cutscene? Isn't he supposed to be much more older and experienced? Didn't we fight countless battles and refuse to yield even against the most powerful enemies possible? The already nonexistent characterization of the Traveler is somehow destroyed even more.
@@milesperhour9256 idk I lost it since fontaine when the traveler yet again refuses to help people like it isnt the best way to get close to the archon and make whatever questions, also they do nothing in that nation plus the meme hydro from I only remember them getting knocked down in the navia clorinde scene and just get protected like is average newbie mc lol when they were that strong against childe, signora and scara
@@asoret this, we literally had this writing for xiao in the chasm quest.
But for xiao, his survivor guilt and endless karmic debt were explored properly. The power of friendship aspect in that quest was handled 1000x better
the way that everyone i know ended up being more moved by capitano’s tiny crumbs of personal lore than by mavuika’s entire storyline says…. a lot.
Count me in as one of those people. I only know Capitano a bit but somehow I understand his personality more than Mavuika. For me, Mavuika makes being an archon as her personality. The archon who is perfect at her job. But Capitano is, like people said, noble and idealistic. He saved many people's inside his heart not because he is a commander, but because he has noble personality.
@ same!! i love him so much. even though i know he’s a fictional character, i can’t help but feel immense respect for him. they developed him as a noble person even when faced with difficult decisions.
mavuika just felt… bland. she didn’t seem to struggle much. even though it was clear that hoyo tried to give mavuika struggles or moral strife, it felt like she dealt with it TOO perfectly. like you said, she’s perfect at her job. with the captain, we know that he made mistakes, killed people, was a part of a shady organization, and was tormented for years by the souls within him.
actually, i remember Citlali's line now, "but what do you want?" even Lord of NK asked that, but she just says "i'm leader, i have to do this" yeah, ok - you do you, idc anymore
@@SuperMassive_Rapscallion see this is why i’m delusional and convinced that he’ll be woven into the storyline more in some way, esp. in Snezhnaya’s chapter. like, i don’t think they’ll bring him back from his slumber at any point, but i don’t know that this is the last we’ll see of him in terms of lore/plot development.
at least i hope not lol.
@@binsarm9026 that pretty much sums up her entire character i fear😭
When neuvillette has more flaws than mauvika, a mere human, makes you wonder how much glorifying of that woman da wei and his goons must undergo.
I loved his sq for that reason, it helped show that he wasn’t a “gary stu” while also having a really emotional story. Mauvika’s sq barely focuses on her and does nothing except glaze her for “winning” a fight against xblanque
@@w7ndI No cuz so much people called Neuvillette a Gary Stu, and I'm like??? Are we talking about the same person???😭😭😭
But tbh, I think Fontaine was peak character writing. I feel like every character was fleshed out - same with Sumeru. They cooked with those two and then burnt with Natlan
this is why the male characters and female characters without the tall model are written better. like, take a look at all the archons. ei and mavuika definitely had the worst writing...felt like they were created for aesthetic purposes which is a shame because they're both expys that were hyped up af. venti, zhongli, nahida and furina on the other hand were wonderful
THAT part
@coraW Ei has WAYYYYY more better writing than Mavuika, what are you on
Another option when she met her sister could have been for her sister to comment on how little it seems like Mavuika shows emotion. If her consciousness went through 500 years it must have been affected, just like you pointed out. It could have been a moment to say something like “you were born a human, are you still a human now? Living that long is not a human experience, being human means to face death” etc etc. It could have brought in more conflict, made her situation more tragic, and highlighted some interesting themes
Oooh that's such a fantastic idea!
Love this idea!
This is great! She could be a character like Violet Evergarden or Frieren, slowly learning (or relearning) about her feelings over time. Showing more emotion in future quests.
It'd show that she was actually affected by the war, but couldn't let it show due to being the perfect leader her people needed.
To be honest, she’s just a human with HUGE responsibility. Words like that could tear her apart, she already tried to mask her pain even before herself (very vivid with Hine on screen). We need to understand that ANY big inner conflict for Mavuika would mean Natlan’s death, a second of doubt would mean that everyones are doomed. She’s not like other Archons, her failure would mean end of her people. Closest to that was Furina, we witnessed her pain in a realm Celestial couldn’t reach If not that we would never know what she went through. But Furina knew her part in the plan yet the execution was in someone else’s hands all she could to was to play her part and trust.
@@Propolis00 That doesn't really track for me. Mavuika is decidedly NOT the same as Furina, there's nobody scrutinizing her or doubting her. Any personal doubt or fear on Mavuika's part does not necessarily equate to absolute failure of her plan. In fact it would make her even cooler because true bravery is acting despite fear, not the absence of fear. It would make her struggles and eventual victory more meaningful and profound, instead of the hollow, bloated, easily-won victory that was just handed to us. It would also humanize her, something that she sorely needs.
I was much more interested in kinich, who appeared for 10 minutes in the quest, than Mavuika to be honest. His backstory is so compelling and ajaw is so weird that i can't help but want more of him
I know😭😭 Like kinich and ajaw had SO MUCH POTENTIAL, yet one of the most interesting characters in Natlan get the LEAST amount of screen time… I love Natlan but it disappointed me so much😢
Me too. I love Kinich so much despite he barely gets enough screentime and not even the focus of his tribal quest/story quest. And I know his design might look out of place, and I myself agree with that, but I love his design even from the first time he was revealed. Listening to all his voice lines and reading his story in his profile make me fall in love with him even more. Sadly, his lore is not implemented in any quest and only limited to his profile.
It's weird that I'm not interested in characters who have more screentime like Mavuika at all, and yet I feel so interested with characters with barely enough screentime like Kinich and Ajaw.
Ajaw is the only thing in the game that makes me more violent then Paimon.
@@Elyssa_00 Gosh this is the same for me: My favourite characters have been adepti in Liyue (especially Moon Carver and Mountain Shaper cuz we still know NOTHING about them and got shitty NPC designs when meeting them in Lantern Rite), Thoma and kinda Kujou Sara (both only really appear in one act of the AQ), gosh EVERYONE in Sumeru like it's insane (like how come I actually remember NPC's names in this region?!??!), found I actually quite enjoyed Emelie *after* i played her quest, the 3 Hearth siblings all have so much potential I wish we could see more than just Navia and Chlorinde (not to diss them, just want some focus on other smaller players, eg Freminet), then Kinich & Citlali (still playing thru her quest) and even Kachina (we saw her situation but didn't really get to see the process of progress or truly know HOW she progressed/was taught by the traveler).
I guess to focus back on your point, I don't read a lot of the lore on their pages, but end up learning most of it through fanfiction. When fanfiction/their lore page is where you learn about the complexity of a character, that takes a lot of potential out of interactions and getting to know the character, like a person gets to know about a friend.
@@terrahatvol7960 Surprisingly, there are a lot of fanfiction writers who actually did way better job at flashing out the characters that they only borrowed from existing medias, than the actual writers of said medias.
Ironically enough, there's a character in HSR who seems to be a perfected version of Mavuika: Feixiao. And this fox general has more flaws than perfect human Mavuika. I've thought of this and discussed this with some people but two details stood out to me. 1) Letting the lady has small flaws 2) Have the lady delegate and depend on her friends, peers, subordinates.
Feixiao is introduced as an undefeated general, but we are shown little things that ground her. She's rowdy and hot-blooded so she leaves diplomacy and espionage to her more discreet and level headed friends Jiaoqiu and Moze. While she's peerless in combat, she consults strategy with her peers Jing Yuan and Huaiyan who are both better suited for tactics and logistics. At the climax of Wardance, she entrusted an important task of holding her back as she's in berserk mode to Yanqing, Yunli, and March who are younger and not as powerful/experienced. Feixiao brags about how she lacks worries but Jiaoqiu's injuries clearly affected her and weights on her despite having her ailment cured thanks to his sacrifices. Then we have her funny quirk of being a lightweight and violent drunk.
Mavuika tho? It's all her one-woman show. It's all her plans that she works on herself but there was little to no hiccups or oppositions towards her. Nobody gets to question her because the writers don't let it happen and if someone tries then Mavuika proves her point. Yay! She doesn't let Kinich have his moment, just take his sword to have her limelight. What a great leader. Her stated flaw of being bad at painting? Oh look, she's perfectly good at it. Like damn, we might as well just send her to defeat Celestia since her plot armor frees her from even a funny quirk.
Oh you explain perfectly
Feixiao is definitely not the perfectly-written character, but yeah better than Mavuika
I agree with you on Mavuika (I can't say anything about Feixiao because I don't play HSR) except on her blocking Kinich. Capitano is the first of the harbingers, with the harbingers down to rank three being on the level of gods. Kinich is strong, but letting him fight the Captain would be so dumb for her to do, just letting him walk into his death. Capitano vs. Kinich probably would have looked like Raiden vs. Signora, and Mavuika needs him alive since he's one of the six heroes.
@@HighLevelPlayer funny you mentioned that, because just so happens in the quest that HSR lets the aforementioned young ones Yanqing, Yunli, and March to have their own time to shine and actually do significant damage to Hoolay, an ancient nemesis and former enslaver of Feixiao, even if they struggled against him. Feixiao only appeared last minute after the trio had their spotlight especially as culmination of Yanqing's character journey and later had her "battle of the mind" as her own moment so nobody outshine the other.
In other words, the game coulda let Kinich and even the other heroes have some scenes fighting Capitano. Doing their best but ultimately outdone by the First Harbinger, but at nick of time saved by Mavu. They just. Kinda refused to let Kinich have any significance ig.
@@jeongyunkim6360 it's so ironic since they share the same Japanese seiyuu, but even the performance quality is kinda a chasm like their writing imo. No shade to her seiyuu though, I have a feeling it's the voice direction.
But yeah, it feels like Mavuika was meant to emulate Feixiao yet the execution is as we can see.
Thats because Raiden was so flawed (as a person) that created a lot of controversy
So this time they did the complete opposite, and created a Archon that has no flaws whatsover
But the problem with Raiden wasn't that she was a shitty leader, but rather the problem was that her actions had no consequences and no one held her responsible
I fell the same way about Mavuika. The plan she made 500 years ago was a bit irrelevant because the Traveler and Capitano finished the job. All Natlan characters were in the supporting role in the story and without the Traveler, they might not make it. But yeah I see the connection.
People dislike Inazuma for *how* it was told, they don't challenge the fundamental premise. They engage with the story and themes and come to the conclusion that it could have been told a lot better, as a result of their fundamental enthusiastic investment in what's going on
Natlan just feels like people didn't enjoy what they got, aren't invested in it and there's not some big outcry for how to fix it because it's a lot more fundamentally uninteresting, rather than being interesting but beefing it in execution.
Nahida and furina came right after raiden and both are pretty flawe indivuals of course not as flawed as raiden but still with flaws
they're similar in regards to Raiden never faced consequences as Mavuika never had challenges
I don't get people who say that Raiden never got any consequences. Raiden literally faced the consequences of her past ideals when the Shogun defied her and forced her to fight 500 years.
People expect her to get crucified by her people when that was never a realistic expectation to begin with following Inazuma's worldbuilding.
I wish we knew WHY Mavuika was so strong for a human. What did this human do to become (theoretically) stronger than someone older and more experienced like the Traveler? It feels like she has plot armor
Inherited Ancient Name, basically the passing of power through all the past archons until now is what makes her so strong. She has their teachings and words of wisdom on hand
Hello there speed reader.
the moment someone becomes a Pyro Archon, they gain knowledge of the entire land aka they have access to all the information about the nation.
also their inner flame(which is potential) gets awakened. Mavuika states that not everyone's potential is that high but hers turned out to be so, matching even the great Pyro Archon Xbalanque
@@motemo8413 Did her potential become high after inheriting the ancient name and becoming pyro archon or was it just like that?
uhh I don't know maybe because of the Divine Throne and the fact that she is the current holder of the Pyro Gnosis, a device with seized authority from the Pyro Dragon Sovereign, one of the original wielders for the element of Pyro across the whole of Teyvat period? You really think Celestia would have a weak representative human or otherwise? And what does this have to do with the Traveller? we've long since discovered that not only does he/she have fragmented memories but an incomplete skill set as well and has failed to overcome just about anything on his/her own without the help of someone or something and succeeded every time, that is plot armor. They already discussed warriors in Natlan with either little to no skill or a natural strength physically and spiritually as discovered in the latest story quest. It's no different than someone being talented versus someone who isn't. She was probably already a vision wielder and we know how powerful ancient names are.
I honestly expected the Pyro Archon to be a passionate, competetive warrior-lady who'd be *the least* archon like of all the archons. Someone who spends a lot of time with her people like drinking, playing games, organising and competing sport while also being very passionate about everything she does and very open with her emotions. She laughs the loudest, cries the loudest and when everyone is angry, she is the angriest of them all.
Also a passionate fighter who will look at any great monster and thing "IMMA KICK THAT THINGS ASS!!" while also being a "cool-mom" who gives pep-talks and does a bunch of weird and goofy things to give others a confidence-boost.
Like she'd see Sucrose and be like "Y'know what? Have my sword and some of my power, now lets go and find the biggest, scariest monster we can find and *YOU'RE* gonna kill it. Cool? Cool."
But Mavuika feels too chill, to calm and collected, too "generic mom" for me, I wanted EXPLOSIVENESS, PASSION, BRAVADO, THE EXTROVERT'S EXTROVERT!!
I love this! I wish we could've had this 😭
after natlan, i'm so worried for snezhnaya, imagine the tsaritsa being a 2 dimensional evil dictator with no other character trait
Nah, it’s mihoyo. Female antagonist get all the character development and excuse for their behaviors.
Or worse... a waifu traveler simp 🗿
@@ET-tu3gp oh god. so many characters fell into this trope🤢
@@warrencaelum9536 Tbh I'm fine with characters being into the Traveler. E.g. Xiao definitely has feelings for them, Lyney is super flirty with them, and Shenhe probably likes them. I just hate it when a character is a blushing uwu tsundere (the wet dream of gooner players who are scared of talking to women) and that's their main personality trait (๑•﹏•)
@@ET-tu3gpyeah, characters are allowed to show interest but when they have nothing else contributing to their personality… it’s just so sad (looking at you Ayaka)
I feel like her bike and perfect planning would make more sense if she came from a doomed future and not from the past.
Why does that automatically seem like a much better plot
@@THATBrokeAroSpecWalletthe bike actually makes much more sense now lol
It would explain the whole tech thing going on in Natlan and her modern clothes.
It would be interesting the reason why Natlan was doomed was do to the never ending war, keeping the whole nation of war thing.
That actually sounds so much better, and they could've injected some more Istaroth lore as well
wait a minute, is their writing this fire?✍️🔥🔥🔥
You are correct. She did not live for 500 years. She traveled through time (basically KOed and respawned into the future) and the only reason the animated short had her bike was to create the hype that she has a bike because it made absolutely zero sense for her to have it in the first place. Everything about her is just so out of place. Especially when you compare that short to Citlali's teaser trailer of actually having to live for over two centuries, the parallel makes it even more obvious.
She has no flaws. It makes her so empty. Nothing about her screams Archon. A 500 year plan would have worked? What if it didn't? She had no guarantee and worst of all, she skipped that 500 years anyway so how many have died during that timespan? The fact that Capitano spent that 500 years fighting for a Nation that is not his and enduring all the souls in his heart. His anger towards her in the previous quests is so valid (even though Hoyo made sure he just agreed with her in the end) that it just makes her all the more unlikeable for me. Then cut to the current arc where she wants to offer up her life? Give or take a few hundred years was all she could come up with from 500 years ago?? It felt so cheap and was not well thought out at all.
Idk, she was just so disappointing for me as a character.
A simple change I would have made to her scenes in the Archon quest: Her sister (while Mauvika was in the sacred flame) would go every night to pray to the flame and try to update Mauvika on her life. Trying to talk to the sacred flame to somehow reach her sister. So, when Mauvika meets her sister in the Night Kingdom, she suddenly gets a flash of memories long forgotten, specifically, of all the thousands of prayers her sister had made to her. This makes her break down, and we see a critical moment of weakness, of her having an urge to stay with her sister’s spirit in the night kingdom rather than face the dragon she knows has a high chance of killing her.
Idk, just an idea. I’m fairly neutral on the Nathan quest, there’s a lot of things that were neat and some gorgeous cutscenes, but it really missed a lot of the character focus and mystery of Fontaine (my favorite region aesthetically, story, and character-wise)
Hine is just an empty plot device as i said to someone on reddit
We do see a bit of expression change when she does meet Hine. There is sadness there.
My personal reasoning for this is just that she's really gotten good at bottling up her feelings over the years, maybe to the point of almost feeling numb? War might've done that to her. It would've been interesting to see more of her actual humanity show which I hope we can get in future Mavuika content because we do see her wish for people to just see her as a regular person and she does still have a love for the extreme sports still since she is a Scion of the Canopy. Perhaps her wishing to have a closer relationship with more of her people rather than being outright idolized could be a good story point.
Also Natlan altogether felt more about the land itself and the people as a whole rather than individual characters. We saw the real time effects of this 500 year war on the nation. Thousands actually died. It's not a bad way to tell a story but yeah. Character focus kind of took a hit because of it.
I say this with Mavuika being one of my favourite characters and really liking the Natlan Archon Quest btw, though I didn't do Mavuika's quest yet.
yesss if only she cried more, she needs to be super vulnerable and cry because thats what girls and women do. the fact that most of comments like these are coming from women is absolutely hilarious
@ …huh? Is crying upon seeing the ghost of your long-dead sister who you missed the entire life of not a scene worthy of tears? If not that, then what would be? Crying is a natural human act that both woman and men do. It’s inherently humanizing to see a character cry.
What’s your point here? That I’m being misogynist by wanting a woman to cry? Or that crying is inherently female and somehow I’m upholding a stereotype by wanting to see Mauvika cry? What a strange comment.
it's weird how abyss is shown to mimic living stuffs since 5.0 and can learn knowledge of natlan leyline, they even created overworld boss that mimic other bosses, which is a perfect build up for a final boss that mimic the closest ones.
Can we also mention how pathetic that entire
"Stand with Mavuika" campaign was?
stand... and then she will run you over with her bike
It would have worked if they didn't made so obnoxiously loud that Mavuika either way was going to win.
If they *actually* had shown Mavuika strained after the biggest war and made the time perception tighter to *actually* feel that she was racing time on this we could have had a way better immersion on wanting to support a weakened archon who happens to be a human.
But, nah.
yeah I don't know what the fuck was even that lol
they act like she is oppressed 😭😭😭😭😭😭
It was such a nothing burger.
I hate this term, but unfortunately Mavuika is a Mary Sue, nothing she brings to the table, her personality is just being "incredible in everything she does and an admirable person" that's all, There is absolutely nothing bad about her, no flaws, no problems... Venti is a God with responsibility issues and alcoholism, Zhongli has adjustment issues and is broken, Ei's a social weirdo with dictatorial tendencies, Nahida is innocent and inexperienced and Furina is human in her entirety, How is the Pyro Archon, who was supposed to be the humanity of the group, the least human among them?
Mavuika is Rey, and Mihoyo reduced Capitano to another Kylo Ren who saves her in the end. She's apparently supposed to be this Himeko, and should've died because of it.
@@ziephel-6780i don’t think mavuika is ray.
Mavuika was basically raised in the time of hero’s. She howned her skills was a fast learner and rose to the top is it lazily explained yes.
The difference is ray grew up with nothing no father figure no training no even much ability to learn.
Then suddenly she can do anything without training. The difference it mavuika is explained but poorly and unsatisfyingly to the point it feels forced. Ray feels like the writers didn’t even bother trying to justify it.
@@robertlaidlaw4592 agree she got training, but also seems she was just born perfect, like highest talent ever surpassing people training for decades in a minute, kinda feels like all the gohan beast drama but thats even worse, wish she had any flaw, or that she was that convinced to save the nation that she would have self sacrifice tendencys, like she doesnt have anything else to loose so why not? then friends could have save and stop her, or idk same as the video maybe she trusts that much herself and others that put them into a problem and starts questioning herself
Whoaa, so I'm not the only one who think that way 😂
Yeah, she's so Mary Sue because she's capable of everything. Other archon feels more like human because they have flaws.
@@mitacestalia7532 yall dont even know what a mary sue is lol you dont have to like her but shes the farthest thing from a mary sue
Honestly I didn't understand why HYV made Mavuika a human, because nothing in her personality is human. Unlike Furina, where we saw the burden that the role of a deity can have on the human psyche, Mavuika, on the other hand, doesn't have this problem at all.
There was the animation dedicated to her, but even that clearly didn't do justice to her human side, because she recovers from her pain very quickly. And that's my first problem with Mavuika: she has no adversity. She was destined to win from the start, everyone accepted her plan without flinching, even though it was said several times that it was risky, and the rare times when people tried to put spokes in her wheels it ended very quickly. Mavuika has no weaknesses, her moments of pain or difficulty are super fast, everyone says how cool and badass she is...in fact she's a Mary-Sue.
EDIT: For those who tell me that Furina and Mavuika didn't share the same burden, it's false. Remember that if Mavuika's plan turned out to be a failure, then the entire people of Natlan would have been decimated. Mavuika could have lost her nation and her friends by betting everything on a plan that turned out to be random from A to Z, because if Chuychu hadn't died, Chasca would never have awakened so Mavuika's plan wouldn't have worked. And that's the problem: for such a risky plan, Mavuika suffered very little from the possible disastrous consequences that it could have caused, she was never afraid to tell herself that her friends and her nation that she is supposed to protect and lead could have died because of her, she was always very confident despite the number of deaths in act 2.
@Sasha-cb8mt The animated short was so bad. It was so vague that you cannot even tell if Mauvika is struggling for 500 years or if she is just bored out of her mind. Her face doesn't express sadness or regret or tears, just a blank stare that can mean anything. Hoyo really does do a lot of things so vaguely that one persons interpretation is just as valid as the others.
I can't feel bad for her if she doesn't show clear signs of sorrow. Blank stare doesn't equal sorrow any more than it does boredom.
Way to out yourself as someone who didn't read the fucking story with your eyes open. Mavuika doesn't have this problem because she hasn't been alive for 500 years. She was alive 500 years ago but then gave herself up to the Sacred Flame in order to be reborn into the future. She hasn't been alive for 500 years, it's still her regular age. If you'd like to know what 500 years is like for a normal human to endure, you have her little trailer where she takes her bike through 500 years of history and it's uncertain to Mavuika when she'll stop and be reborn. We see her falter and struggle to find the courage to keep this going, unsure of how long it'll take. She's not a Mary Sue, you're just a retard.
Not trying to defend Mavuika or anything but an important part of Furina’s burden was not just that of being a human deity, it was the immense stress of having to convince the whole of Fontaine that she wasn’t human. She had no way to prove she wasn’t human, no powers, no hydro authority, so the only thing she could do was play a character. Not only that, but she could not confide in anyone because if anyone knew the real Furina the whole of Fontaine would be in danger. Even though she was surrounded by people, constantly praised, always in the spotlight, it was all meaningless because none of it was directed towards her but instead the person she was pretending to be. She was truly alone. 500 years of solitude would take a toll on anybody, but Mavuika never had that burden. People knew her as the pyro archon but there were also people who knew her as Mavuika.
@@zukodude487987her voice doesn’t either.. I think the studio failed the interpretation of Mavuikas character and voice atp (no hate to the Va cause she can definitely do a great job and put a lot of emotion into her!!) but sadly there was no emotion in her voice 70% of the time
@ I think it is an issue with the game in general where almost every character story is its own contained story with no actual substance or no clear direction and very generic. They are like filler, nothing meaningful and very generic and doesnt contribute to their development.
A lot of character lines are also very generic like how Yanfei says the laws can be *good or bad*, like yes the laws can be good or bad, that is obvious. I can say the weather can be either cloudy or clear and both are good and bad in their own right, because it is self evident an thus meaningless to say unless you are talking to a toddler. It is just meaningless word chatter for the sake of having the characters talk.
The characters need more direction and contribute more to the overall world or story. Mauvikas animation was a clear example of filler and keeping the story vague. I think they are doing that cuz they dont want the players to feel like the story is gatekept behind a youtube video, but it has the side effect of making the videos worthless to watch much like Naruto filler is worthless to watch.
It doesn’t help that the Abyss didn’t feel threatening at all! We’ve been folding Hilichurls, Abyss Mages, and Rifthounds for years now. The only new abyss enemy mimics other enemies. They gave us of a taste of how dangerous the abyss can be with the Narwhal in Fontaine, but didn’t expand on it at all. All I kept saying to myself in the AQ was “Y’all are losing to this”?
Liyue characters: Put aside their differences with the Adepti, fight hand-in-hand, and sacrifice their homes to protect Liyue after their beloved god was assassinated
Inazuma characters: Form a resistance army, create an underground network to help people escape a fascist nation, stage a coup against a tyrannical government
Sumeru characters: Devise a plot and break the law to celebrate and free their imprisoned god despite constant surveillance and mind control
Fontaine characters: Take action according to their own strengths to save the people of Fontaine from a cataclysmic event, put their god on trial for not putting in the same effort
Natlan characters: Say some really nice and encouraging words from the sidelines
Yea same thoughts. Feel like the abyss monsters should have been more terrifying or different lol
@@justinbailey1669 Traveler did nothing in Fontaine. legit u can remove them from the plot and nothing changes.
meanwhile in Natlan they cured so many people from abyssal corruption and even helped to take down Eroded lord of the primal fire
it feels like Traveler did the most in Natlan out of all the nations
@@motemo8413 traveler isn't meant to take part in the main events anyway. their main reason for exploring teyvat is to find their sibling and be a witness because their memories cannot be tampered with from things like irminsul
@@vilfs their goal hasn't been to find the sibling since we will be reunited quest. they are exploring Teyvat to see the truth of this world that made Abyss twin take the path that they did
Can we also talk about how the best researchers in Fontaine are still playing around with gears while xilonen somehow casually creates djs and bikes and rollerskates even with the limited resources she has
it's all those ancient texts that she's hoarding in her attic, or maybe whole house, that's why she has to sleep outside on trees
And it's just what she throws together when she's not doing her job of carving Ancient Names, I guess. Just casually outdoing every single bit of tech in the rest of the entire world with her earbuds in. Because, you know, something something -magical fairy dust- phlogiston.
Fr… everyone always going on about Fontaine tech, and khaenriah tech, and freaking dottore who’s a genius made some mecha god with the sumeru scholars… and then u got some random smithing girl in natlan whom you’ve never heard of outside of natlan and is making mad futuristic sht…
@nowifi8063 "never heard of" is because of the Natlan isolation.
anyway, let's see if they make some kind of event in Fontaine organized by the FRI and Ocelotgirl is the superstar... 😐
@@binsarm9026 isolation u say? It’s not like people from other nations don’t visit natlan… you’d think some scholars from sumeru or engineers from Fontaine would have heard of her and seen her tech.
Feels like the B team wrote Natlan/Mavuika. This can't be the work of people who made Sumeru/Fontaine. And as much as people hate aranara quest, atleast the Archon quest of Sumeru was S tier. As much as you hate the desert, the secrets/lore of the pyramids were worth it. The world building was crazy. How did we go from Fontaine/Sumeru to Natlan? Such a downgrade.
While doing Nahida's birthday quest, when they were getting a family photo at the end, all I could think was how attached I felt to the Sumeru characters. I ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT THEM. EACH ONE OF THEM.
Then I reflected at Fontaine cast... Furina, Neuvilette, Lyney, Arlecchino, Navia, Wriosthley, Clorinde, Sigewinne, Lynette, Ferminet, Chiori.... I really felt connected to every single character. I liked their story, liked their quirks, liked their designs, their playstyle. I wanted MORE FROM THEM. Like what they're doing now how are they? That's how well written they were, we forget for a second that they are fictional characters.
But then I look at Natlan characters. I FEEL NOTHING. They are so surface level and shallow. Ideally I should have recency bias since this is the latest update and I should be in the honeymoon/hype phase. I spent my hard earned primos to pull them. Yet I feel no connection to them except Kachina and Ororon. If some of them were unalived in the war I wouldn't have cared. That's how bad Natlan characters' writing was. The blind Hoyo shills downplay this fact a lot and this is very bad cuz the writing will get worse if you don't criticise them now.
I'm so glad you mentioned the Sumeru characters because a lot of these waifu obsessed shills try to downplay the mid reception of Natlan and make it seem like only the "husbando pullers" are hating it due to the lack of male characters. A lot of "husbando pullers" I know from various online spaces love Sumeru's characters male AND female because they're written well. They have and develop character relationships that we actually see onscreen that's why they are received well. Sumeru characters has a whole ass literal "found family" theme going for it.
Snezhnaya is the nation I was most hyped for and now I worry it will be the same shallow storytelling as it was Natlan
Exactly, I was so hyped for Natlan since my favorite element was pyro ...
Aranara quest wasn't bad tbh, it was just unnecessarily long since it combined so many little quests. I personally enjoyed it
Saying hoyo shills made me disregard everything you just said, also fuck Sumeru's story and it's characters, Dehya and Wanderer were the only good characters it had.
It's crazy how Mavuika is supposed to be the only human amongst the Archons yet other Archons feel so humanlike and have emotions but Mavuika seems the farthest away from human emotions despite being a human. She is perfect in everything. No vulnerability, no weakness, nothing. Bravo writers 😂
Almost like that’s the point…
@@Angel-Kittyyelaborate?
@@angellexgamer5416 Mavuika is the only human archon (except from Furina, however she was always perceived as a god by her people anyway).
The way I interpreted Mavuika is that she was so strong and actually godlike in order to contrast the archons before her. Venti is a drunk, zhongli retired, ei was a tyrant, and nahida was imprisoned. Mavuika contrasts the other archons by actively playing a role in her nation and leading her people. She acts like a god who supports her people and leads them despite being human. To me, that adds to the overall point of Genshin and hoyoverse games in general where the “power of humanity” is so important. It would make 0 sense to make her seem weak or vulnerable.
I like to add onto Angel kitty's comment. We already saw her insecurities, fear and lonesomeness in her animated short. Seeing your friends die, knowing you're outliving everyone and your family. 500 years of waiting and being in her own subconscious was enough time to wallow again and again and then find her resolve again to fight for her Nation. Why I like Mavuika is because we finally had a competent archon who could lead and fight alongside her people. No internal conflict manifesting itself in her existence, no mentally cooked person, there was no saving her because she didn't need to be saved. If it felt like we had no time to connect with her it was because it was purposefully written that way. She had no time for herself up until the end finishing her painting. It's the first nation that felt like a nation and challenged the gods.
Her biggest flaw and the most humanistic characteristic in game, is self-regard. She doesn't hold herself to any standard and see's no value in her life, such as renova said. This was all shown in game through the archon quest with how much her dialogue and interactions has her worrying and fretting about the abyss. She never has time to herself. Her SQ also touches more on her fears. But if multiple people choose to ignore it and provide shallow arguments to fit their argument, then we're all just going in a circle.
@@Angel-Kittyy it's fine if it's with the people, the same way furina did. but we barely get to be with mavuika this AQ that even if it's only the traveler and mavuika. she still has no flaws. there's no human who doesn't have vulnerability on them. A perfect cardboard character is still bad character writing/
It felt so wrong when the game outright needed to nerf and humiliate Xbalanque in order to hype Mauvika . Xbalanque one of the most hype characters for natlan. Turned into a npc kids and defeated by Mauvika . That was sad to see
They successfully killed any hype I had about Xbalanque haha. I don't even care if he becomes playable or not. I'm still holding out hope for Xihucoatl..... barely.
Turning into NPC kid ain't the problem.
The fact that this story quest promised us with exploring non-battle mode Mavuika and simultaneously introduced Xbalanque into the plot is baffling.
Citlali is reduced to a worrywart, Iansan feels one-dimensional as heck, Ajaw and that red Ifa bird take up screentime to show that the plot is not even a page long.
One of the worst story quests ever in-game.
Yeah and they took him away. We were this close to our first małe child playable character
@@stevieveringus3857 It was supposed to be Mauvika's story quest, but I didn't feel like it explored Mauvika's character, personality or history at all. I came out of it knowing the exact same about her going in.
@crypticcryptid4702 she's an empty shell of a character. Someone superficially saw a successful sports captain with good leadership skills and did a lazy copypasta, added more polymath genius tropes that has nothing to do with being a god of war and finally excreted this character.
Something that bothers me is Mavuika's plans in general. Her plan for Act 4 is magically hoping that the last hero wakes up before everyone in natlan dies (and if everyone in Natlan dies then the rest of Teyvat has to deal with her failure). Without that last hero, Mavuika does not get the power of Ronova which was the only thing she mainly planned to save them with. Whatever death toll you got is a direct consequence of her refusing Capitano's plan and running on hopes and dreams. No one ever complains about this including Chasca whose sister died and could have lived had Mavuika informed her she was the last hero.
Her next plan is to offer her life force up to stabilize the leylines but her life force is only worth a few hundred years. When asked how Natlan will cope after that runs out, she basically says: "my successors will find a way somehow". If they can't, Natlan's leylines just get ruined then. She has no concrete plans for the future.
In comparison the plans Capitano had were more concrete and the last one basically saved the entire country from having to worry about the leylines because they are now sustained through Capitano's immortality.
It really bothered me when she said that they can’t force the hero’s to wake up, like woman you’re at war with the lovecraft monsters, you don’t have the privilege of time.
The only character who called her out was Capitano. In the end, he also surrendered to her plan.
I wanted to side with Capitano so badly when he asked me to, but I knew deep down I'd be railroaded into Mavuika's power of friendship plan (TT)
My thoughts exactly. I have most beef with her stupid plans which are all clunky and uncertain. Despite being called out multiple times throughout the story, all of the characters ended up saying "let's trust her". Anyone doubting her was labeled as either a villain or a traitor. Mavuika refused to speak and explain her "gathering" plan to Chasca, which resulted in thousands of people died in the Natlan war just to wait for Chasca's natural wake-up. And if Capitano didn't step in, Ororon would never get the chance too.
@@kneeofjustice9619 this omg, when the only logical guy in the room (capitano) showed up they immediately reduced him to another mavuika yes-man
They could've progressed the story to make mavuika realize her plan was too risky and try look for a middle ground with capitano
You helped put the finger on part of why I felt so uncomfortable with the final act of natlan, I also wasn't a fan of the traveler-glazing during the story either honestly. US getting a parade and a crown and SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS? while the archon of the nation who really did most of the fight is trying and failing to slink off to die was so DEEPLY weird as a choice, not to mention the even weirder choice of having the old man recount the archon quests we JUST went on to some kids and having the kids conclude that the traveler is EVEN MORE AWESOME THAN PERFECT ARCHON. The "retelling" scene went on way too long I kept waiting and waiting for it to cut away and just going "Why..."
I wasn't a fan of Mauv having no struggles, but the traveler themselves barely struggled either. Natlan was just going to parties and getting praised over and over, the war arc was interesting but in the context of the no-struggle nation falls a bit flat sadly. Even the interlude resists every impulse to allow even the npc characters to struggle by showcasing magical abyss-PTSD that's disabling and hugely impactful and.... fix it with one sip of a potion! It has side effects, but they aren't shown, deliberated about, or considered really, AND the cure is foisted onto some of the characters without any sort of informed consent, overridding any of their potential wishes for recovery.
I think if the natlan tech incorporated the big thing that was unique about their nation THE SAURIANS it would've gone over way better imo, but since we can pick up and use the saurians in the overworld I guess they decided incorporating even scales or feathers into the tech to make it fit in with the settings wouldn't stand out enough to make people buy the characters or something? or somehow going for some wild "anti abyss" glowy stuff could've worked. For that matter it's wild we mostly got human and dinosaur enemies when the abyss has been attacking forever and ever, no new abyss monsters? Ah well...
weird choices overall for the nation.
Seriously, the tralever-glazing is really too much and truly unnecessary. It's so painful to witness.
Seriously it's so weird that we fight the human fighters in the overworld. Why are we actively sabotaging the war 😭
Respect your opinion but kinda disagree on the glazing part. Traveler has made a name for himself in other nations so people already has bias on how great he is and to see it into action by becoming the very first outlander to be given an ancient name and not to mention it was directly given by the night lord herself and not the wayob makes him very special on the eyes of the natlanese. And the parade was both for the traveler and mavuika but she just didnt join because she still needed to do the thing with Ronova. In my opinion, the glazing part was kinda nice lol. The dancing was cringe tho ngl.
Agree with how they dealt with the ptsd though and I also think they did Capitano some injustice after all the hype built around him.
Nah. We deserved the Parade and all. By this point weve helped saved 6 nations already and Natlan os the first time they've put out all the stops as a thank you for helping them.
You don't like MC doing MC thing?
I think Hoyo missed a huge opportunity to make Mauvika and her sister act either as a mirror or a foil to Traveler and their sibling. What if Mauvika giving up her normal life to play a huge role in Teyvats fate but leaving her sister behind was allowed to be the obvious parallel it feels like it should have been?
My interest in Genshin is at its lowest point atm since launch. The only saving grace of Natlan is just Citlali's story quest for me.
First time ever that I had 0 interest in an Archon, making her the only one I didnt pull even though they made her so busted.
Also why does the story have so many celebrations, you finish one thing -> party -> repeat..... Use the damn time to flesh out Capitano's character more instead, absolutely disappointing how they handled him.
Same, except even Citlali fell through for me. Her initial design, and skill descriptions were very interesting... and then it all turned into pillow fighting, plushie throwing and futon floating. F*cking why, hoyo???
@@alexmelik4030 It's still "fine" compared to the other Natlans (Ororon is fine too).
I see it as poltergeist thing since her tribe deals with spirits. Still within reach, unlike some random ass motorcycle in Teyvat.
@@caitw6528 oh yes, Ororon is a single bright (dark?) spot on this sh*tshow. Costume is somewhat half and half, but good character and badass skill design.
i did mavuika story quest, and it was awful. i feel like it was made for 6 yr old
@@someoneinasia also pointless as heck.
i feel like part of mavuika's traits that they could further develop is her savior complex and how she always goes the extra mile to assist everyone with their problems and issues, and rushes towards danger without hesitation or consideration. something that might come off as reckless and unnecessary, maybe even unwise cos she always resorts to punching her way through things without planning further ahead or considering the consequences of her actions or how it might go wrong. smth like Korra if anyone's familiar with her character which would fit well with mavuika's status as an archon and the expectations that her people set on her to fight back the abyss and save the land.
So, kind of like Noelle, but more extreme.. I can get behind that!
If she was written like Korra, I would have liked her
Yeah korra without the hot headedness
Except she wasn't brash and was well aware of the consequences of her plan and how much of a hail Mary it was. She just considered the consequences of capitano's plan to be worse, something she thought about before he was in the picture
@isdrakon9802 they're some professional lore writers. i'm sure they can figure smth out. im just a fan tryjng to make the best of what we were given so take it with a grain of salt xd
Having to leave Furina to meet Mavuika feels like reading a masterpiece of literature through centuries, and then having to read an 11 year old’s first Wattpad fanfic
pretty much, Furina's quest is the best archon quest so far for sure. Natland archon quest is like a mess.
Man, Fontaine raised my expectations too high..
they wanted to portray her as the bakugo of the archons
the symbol of victory
they failed to show significant struggles that would've endeared her to the audience
100%. The pacing of Fontaine was so well done, the mystery just kept building upon itself until everything came crashing down. Not to mention Neuvillette and Furina's incredible character arcs. Natlan spells out in Act 1 that Mavuika will save everyone. And then... nothing happens to challenge that, her plan works with no hiccups for the next 4 acts, and the character with the most meaningful character arc in 5.X is the potato saurian companion. Neat
this is exactly what happened to FF14 after Endwalker
Marvuika just feels so...bland. Like literal cardboard. I don't hate her, but I don't like her either. Because there's nothing TO like or hate about her. That's how boring they somehow managed to make her. How the actual hell did we go from Venti, Ei, Nahida, Zhongli, and Furina to her.
@@LeaveMeAloneFBI Natlan was so rough
There are actually something to hate about her , she took so much screentime while having zero personality , players complain about paimon who infinitely more interesting than that cardboard
It makes one wonder, did they deliberately tame her down to emphasize she is human, or is it just bad writing?
modern western writing is leaching into china.
I understand why people find her boring, but I guess that's what makes a good archon. Loved by everyone, calm, intelligent, powerful, inhumanely flawless.
In my opinion, she's the first archon we've seen that actually FEELS like an archon, and ticks all the boxes. Feels like a breath of fresh air to me, compared to what we've experienced with the other archons
It's fine if some characters don't have standout flaw or quirk, I can enjoy more simple ones like Robin from hsr and Tohru from Fruits Basket. Genshin has its fair share of mellowed capable characters too, but what makes Mavuika stands out from them is that they spent SO MUCH time to glaze her. Damn near every moment she's on screen there's going to be someone praising her or just build up how awesome she is. The marketing for her is quite aggressive too. It affected not only her character but also made her relationship with others so boring.
She has her flaw, but the way it's presented doesn't look like a flaw. And every character has to make sure you focus on how good she is at everything. Seriously why is she good at every hobby she picked?
some people are just built like that y'know. Talented in most things. i've met such ppl irl
and even then tohru actually does have flaws that are revealed later into the show
Tohru actually have some flaws, unlike Mavuika.
@@hafannYeah I wouldn't mind her being mega talented if she has a flawed personality, for example Gojo.
@@Luberryya gojo has silly traits that humanize him, and his past literally affected him so much and thats why he has the invisible barrier up 24/7.
Even then, seeing geto again still tirggered him at the station. While mavuika's past doesnt rly lead anywhere when it comes to her behavior/emotion
Guys, maybe I'm an idiot, but where is Varka? Where is his expedition, where are the damn horses? They've been in Natlan for 5 years and when the traveler got here, nothing was heard about them at all? Not a single note, rumor? This is strange...
I was so hyped waiting for that "Furina moment" to happen to Mavuika and make us see her in a new light... I'm devastated.
That's why you should never have high expectations for a Hoyoverse storyline lmao
@@ExceedRed I mean Hoyo's storylines are good, their storytelling is bad. In Natlan, both are mid/bad.
@@KabooYT id argue the non aq writers have the biggest claim yo fame when it comes to the story line and whoever pocks what details to add to the AQ just skims the lore for stuff they think is "cool enough" rather than making the character stand on their own anymore
Fontaine storytelling was the peak Hoyo set for themselves
@themadderhatter8528 ruu, Aranara, Jeht, Narzissenkreuz were genuinely better than most AQs
When you think about it... Mavuika's plan wasn't great, was it? She didn't take traveller or Capitano into account when she made it, and without them, she would've been cooked. Without Capitano, Ororon wouldn't have gotten his ancient name, and Xilonen would've died. Without Traveller, Chasca could've died. When someone from a completely different nation who you didn't even know about has to save one of the six main people your plan hinges on TWICE... yeah, not looking good.
(Tbh I'm not mad about the Chasca dying thing, just a personal opinion lol, but yeah idk if she thought it through)
@THATBrokeAroSpecWallet Yeah, no, Chasca joining her sister would be great for me. But Mavuika needs her to be alive for the plan. If she wasn't, Natlan would've likely been destroyed in 5.1 since she wouldn't have been able to access Ronova'a power.
it's a nothing plan.
Hoyo just said, she travels 500 years on a motobike and will solve the war problem -- just make her *look* cool for revenue and fit in whatever filler stories around it
@@binsarm9026 And to think ppl are comparing it to Fontaine and saying Mavuika suffered as much as Furina. Like what?? 😭
@@binsarm9026 indeed. The backstory holds no weight for the current timeline in AQ hence making her entire being shallow
Lore wise, the unrivaled technology of Natlan is something I just can't brush off... like their only explanation is "oh phlogiston + xilonen goes brrrr" but like??????
A flying bike???? A flying gun???? A defying gravity skates????
Like we heard how revered Fontaine's tech was thanks to the years upon years of geniuses that worked in the institute that we can track back to René and Allain... yet Xilonen *ALONE* shatters all these creations in her short life span thanks to phlogiston??? How on earth would she not be one of the most famous people alive in all of Teyvat????
Yet everyone's response is "is a cool flying gun just get over it", "bikes are cool... don't think about it too much"
I really dont give a damn about lore and I enjoy it but it is funny that it's kinda like Vibranium from Wakanda, it just does whatever lol
Some ppl are just braindead and just play the game for the sake of playing ig
This omfggg
The closest character when it comes to invention and tech/research is albedo BUT he got a thorough explanation abt khemia, rhinedottir and so on. The fact that he himself is the product of khemia is also another thing.
But xilo is a deus ex machina for all of these tech they have it's just downright lazy writing
To add more salt to the wound, Chasca's flying gun, Xilonen's rollerskates, AND Mavuika's bike felt very out of place that it looks like they only got those equipments (weapons?) through pure one-sided privileges.
Mualani's inflated shark is understandably came by the People of Springs culture since they lived by the hotsprings and all residents are like your typical beach people community.
Kinich's spiderman like kit is a clear reference to their local Saurians ability at the Scions of the Canopy. I see Ajaw being an 8-bit sprite as an easy pass considering we have the Akasha hologram back in Sumeru.
Kachina's drill, a creation of Xilonen herself is influenced by the Children of Echoes' geography and their long history of mining and forging weapons.
Then you see the rest of the average enemy NPCs (non local legend) looking more tribal w/ some sort of magic going on. I still cannot ignore the itch behind my ear after discovering Mavuika have the whole Flamestrider mechanic (flying, climbing, surfing) except grappling, DESPITE FORMERLY BELONG TO THE SCIONS OF CANOPY
I just can't believe that those things exist in the same world where a 1900s camera, Khaenri'ah's clunky ruin machines and Fontaine's steampunk technology are considered high tech.
What I find frusturating is that a lot of this could be resolved if they had just implemented the lore from the “Sunset” animation into the main game. People shouldn’t have to watch content on UA-cam, outside of the main game, in order to fully understand a character. It is quite literally just a stupid approach to a character. Like, imagine if they never told us Furina was suffering for 500 years, and she was just a “human version of Focalor”, and the only way to figure it out was to watch a short on UA-cam. That is absurd.
I really hate this tactic to storytelling because it means the players has to do bloody homework, that is just bloody wavk
they knew to rehash the arlecchino cinematic into the game, so im not sure why they didnt do it here lol
I mean, maybe itll get expanded on in game with her second sq? But even then we kind of already know what we know, it feels weird having to wait like 5,6 months just for them to talk about it again.
@@GhoSt-mu2io They did this with Firefly in Star Rail.
Honestly, I don't watch the starrail shorts. If it mattered, it'd be in the game.
Pissed off a lot of Firefly simps because I called her a basic waifu and people try to go "noooo she like lost a bunch of friends and stuff" really? Then why isn't it in the game?
Sorry, I'm not doing homework for another game. She's presented as a basic boring waifu in game, so she IS a basic boring waifu in game.
@@jadecoolness101 FIREFLY IS BORING !!!! Say it louder to the back benchers.
Every archon has only gotten more complex as time has gone on. Each new archon since Morax has had some conflict with their nation’s ideals and it has reflected in their character arc.
Ei’s writing was awful, but you can definitely see some crumbs of what they were trying to do. Her arc is about learning to let go of her need for control because of her fear of loss and change. She must come to recognize her people’s will and respect it.
Nahida’s story ties in to the themes of Sumeru and Dendro as a whole: coming together and sharing in knowledge and community. She has to learn to believe in her power and come to acknowledge her compassion and strength by all of her newfound friends. (and i think it helps that, for me, sumeru had one of the best casts in the game. The way all of the unrelated characters and story beats came together to support her in the end was just ~chef’s kiss~.”
Furina had by far the best story out of all of the archons. She is in appearance the god of justice, yet her situation in life was nothing but unjust. Forced to play a fraudulent role with no end in sight, always having to put on an act because if anyone realized the truth, all of Fontaine would be destroyed and her efforts would be in vain. The way Hoyo made sure of the way we would react to her at first - assuming she’s out of touch and moronic - and the way they kept that momentum going all the way up until they dropped the 4.2 update and we learned the truth was amazing storytelling. I think her character carried the 4.0 story, and is why so many remember it fondly.
And at last we have Mavuika. On first glance, her story is moving and tragic. She gave up everything to put a plan into action to save her homeland - and soon the world - from utter destruction. Her character is marked by maturity, optimism, and loyalty to her people. Her belief is that the shared experience of Natlan’s history - the sacrifices, the glories - is the most important thing of all. This puts her at direct odds with Capitano, who, despite them sharing the same goal of saving Natlan, believes the heart of a nation are the people themselves. This conflict was so interesting, and I was looking forward to seeing them butt heads and test each other’s ideals. *cough* *cough*.
The theme of Natlan is: No one fights alone. I’ve seen people criticize it, call it weak, but I disagree. The story isn’t about the archon, it’s supposed to focus on Natlan and its people. Their entire culture, for thousands of years, has been centered around fighting the abyss. They eat, drink, and sleep warfare. Naturally the story should center the tribespeople because this is their story, not hers alone.
Instead most of the main characters get sidelined in the stadium while their archon and the traveler fight their final boss for them. So fucking lame.
Mavuika’s conclusion arc should’ve been taking a backseat and trusting her people to fight the abyss dragon themselves. Maybe she could’ve dealt the final blow or something, idk. The way Hoyo wrote the 5.0 story, everything was leading up to all of the playable characters teaming up and fighting together, but i guess hoyo realized that wouldn’t sell as well, so they changed it. I have no clue, I’ve been scratching my head since 5.3 dropped as to how they could’ve dropped the ball on the finale this badly.
In conclusion (or tldr): Every archon’s story mirrors the ideal of their nation. Mavuika’s arc bummed a lot of us out because Hoyo wrote her role to be secondary to the main cast, a leader and mentor figure, and then pulled an UNO reverse card at the end and sidelined everyone else to give her arc an unimportant focus that rings empty in the face of the story.
Even if her people had the power to fight Gosoythoth (which they likely didn't), they literally couldn't even enter the Night Kingdom to approach him cos of the sheer amount of Abyssal contamination. Only she and Traveler had the resistance to get close enough to fight and defeat him.
I can kind of get behind this actually but It had been established that she was the only other one capable of staying in the Night kingdom for a long period of time besides the Travler who could basically just chill there because they are completely immune to the abyssal corrosion. Overall acts I, II, IV were great, act V was ok and act III made me want to off myself
@@RGA301092 then write a different ending, one that actually resonates with the "no one fights alone" theme instead of mechanically contradicting it.
"No one fights alone"
While 6 playable characters with Visions where who are clearly powerful than the NPC and Saurian ghosts that appeared later on--- were outside while delievering whatever their power of friendship speech to the Traveler and Mavuika😂😂
Mentioned one time that Mualani has been champion for several times in previous Pilgrimages before Kachina took her streak. Why tf is she not there to help us at the end?
@@ArmorFrogEntertainment If Kachina had not understood what the disappearance of the flame meant, that Mavuika had called the flame to her to step through it, and started singing the ode of resurrection, I don't know that Mavuika would have been able to bring Traveler back when Goysosoth killed him/her. It is implied through the whole story that the ode grants the willpower of the people to the archon, to bring back what is lost. I don't know, I felt like that was enough. Some people complain that the singing was lame because "the power of friendship" but it is a firmly established mechanic of Natlan.
I feel like it would have been more interesting if they sent a different Harbinger.
Imagine if someone like Pantalone or Dottore were sent to Natlan instead of Capitano. Mauvika would find herself dealing with an enemy that she can't defeat trough mere physical strenght, which I think could be a basis for some character study or growth. Like maybe Dottore releases a deadly virus trough Natlan and offers a cure in exchange for the gnosis, or maybe Pantalone uses his wealth to buy the loyalty of some tribes, putting them one against the other and disrupting the peaceful coexistence of the nation. Hell, maybe Capitano could still be there, and seeing his colleague's actions might lead to him doubiting his loyalty to the organisation.
@@Gennaropacchiano Pantalone seems to be Yelan and in extension... Liyue's enemy
I really hope they do better in snezhnaya, natlan as a whole just felt so out of place, I did pull for mavuika but the only reason I did is because I liked her design, but the thing is I wouldve liked mavuika as a character if she wasnt the pyro archon and instead someone else from another nation that couldve fit her design better. Her whole design felt so out of place with the whole biker theme that I fail to understand why they couldnt have just used the design she had in the trailer that released (with the ancient heros). They couldve done so much better with mavuika, and natlan as a whole , but instead it just ended up being so dissapointing and im afraid that snezhnaya will end up the same (and the tsaritsa too) but only time will tell ig
I hope so too! but the good thing is that Hoyoverse switches developer teams every Nation
So we at least know that the same people who worked on Natlan won't work on Snezhnaya, so there's hope
More like fire them@@zhongliswallet6241
I think they know they can t mess up Snezhnaya, everyone was waiting for it since 1.0
Snezhnaya is at least based os proper culture. Not some uncivilized africans.
I totally agree. Mavuika 500 years ago was so lovely, especially the moments she spent with her sister.
There have been theories circulating where a lot of people genuinely believe the archon quest was rewritten and with the way it went I’m starting to believe it as well
this happened also with inazuma, any chapter at this point could be believed to be rewritten. just accept it was meant to be like this from the start.
Its pretty likely, with Da Wei taking over the direction of the game and everything
In the trailer Mavuika changes into a bird or phoenix, but we got a motorbike, they definitely changed the story!
They removed the Prologue chapter of the official Genshin comics in the Chinese website early last year (assuming when they started developing Natlan) so it checks out. That's the chapter with Venti and Venessa with some bits of Natlan lore.
@@eszterfodor1136 Okay transforming into a Phoenix sounds waaaay cooler than a bike (which is still cool).
I noticed instantly, it’s why I haven’t gone past act 1, since I feel like she’s just secretly soloing the story and is like “yeah we won because of me tbh”.
I thought archons were supposed to be flawed lol.
• Venti: extremely mysterious, will not tell the truth, cares little about his role as an archon, withholding information on purpose, but clears signs of empathy in situations like Dvalin and aiding when necessary.
• Zhongli: basically “retired”, also cares little about his role, shows a lot of appreciation to his people and Adepti (saves Xiao), prefers to masquerade as a human like Venti. Similar “all knowing” vibes like Mauvika, but keeps it to himself or is very reserved.
• Raiden: flawed to the extreme, major personal issues, humorous levels of lacking common sense, but was able to accept she needs to do better and looks toward future in the end.
• Nahida: young archon, required assistance to overcome the crisis, cures her people of a severe disease, people don’t accept her so easily and she actively tries to build on that relationship through assistance. Gains invaluable information through skilful negotiation with Dottore, despite losing a Gnosis (which wasn’t even the Dendro one lmao).
• Furina: literally dies, puppet is a scared flawed young clone with little information or power, gives up her powers to Neuvillette, acknowledges her death is the only option forward, puppet masquerades as the archon bearing the weight of hundreds of years of lying to “her people”. Eventually the puppet gains some form of normality as a regular person with a job.
• Mauvika: BOSS, INFALLIBLE, *TIPS FEDORA* “I’VE ALREADY WON”, KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT TO DO, IS STRONGER THAN EVERYONE, COULD PROBABLY SOLO THE STORY WITHOUT YOU.
I hope I like Mauvika when I continue the story though, I hope I’m wrong too.
Biggest plot hole in Natlan is..Do they remake the Statues of the 7 whenever a new Archon appears? 🤣 this is why this didn’t work for me at all..entire time I had that thought in my head.
Also it would’ve made more for a compelling story if Natlan divided between Capitano and Mavuika’s plan tbh. It would make an interesting plot line (and If I am not mistaken something like that was shown in Chaska’s CQ aka tribe thingy). I hoped they would play into Mavuika’s overconfidence at some point and make her slip up since A LOT of things did change in 500 years and that mistake would split Natlan..but nah she ended up being perfect until the very end
Honestly this is a really big plot hole when you consider how previous nations handled it. In Inazuma, Makoto and Ei were twins, so the statues could have just been Makoto the whole time. In Sumeru, Rukhadevatta and Nahida looked identical after the former shrank in size, so again, the statues could have been both of them. Fontaine is the first time we see where a statue seems to have been changed when the role of Archon was passed over, because it's clearly Focalors and not Egeria. But we also never really see Egeria clearly enough to know whether they looked significantly different.
But then what the heck, Natlan? Shouldn't the statue be Xbalanque then? If they change the statue for each Archon (which seems unrealistic with how the statues are clearly Celestial in nature), then Kachina wouldn't say it's a coincidence that it looks like Mavuika. Did they lose they ability to change how it looked because Mavuika was in stasis? So like, fuck all the Archons who came after her in that 500 year period, right??
@ ikr? 🤣 That was what I was thinking entire time. So everything all other archons did for 500 years (Including our goat Murata who didn’t even get a mention) just didn’t matter at all because Mavuika is biblically accurate and correct archon after all 💀 like bruh..The most annoying stuff I always hated in any anime is when EVERYTHING goes to the “plan”, like Teyvat changed a lot in 500 years my guy and so did the Abyss especially since we know what mimi-floras are a thing. Also how tf did Mare Jivari disappear 20 or so years ago when Bennett was found there as a baby and he is clearly not 20, or an adult for that matter 🤣💀
I actually think most of the statues were made 500 years ago. I don't think they were there before, like during the archon war. Mavuika was already the archon 500 years ago, Ei had a twin still was the archon during that time, Nahida, Venti, Furina, and Zhongli archon. Read somewhere they weren't there after the Archon war, but I'm not really sure
@@HerrscherOfFate-x8p it would make sense that Statues are made after Archon War ofcourse, because thats when “7 seats were opened up” (I forgot who said that it was probably Zhongus). Also thats when they supposedly got their respective Gnosis (Ik Archon war never happened in Sumeru, Deshret refused gnosis so Rukkha got it because she was last God alive in Sumeru, and Natlan obviously they didn’t have Gods only Dragons so far If I am not mistaken)
Now when I think about it, it seems Celestia chopped up 3rd Descender after (or during Archon war) then 🤔 I mean they needed to make Gnosis out of their body…
This 100%. I really think that after saving Kachina from the Night Kingdom, they should've made her really skeptical about Mavuika's plan and talk to us about it. This would lead us to seeking out Capitano, who has different ideas. It would've been awesome to go around with Kachina helping the Captain form a better plan while Mavuika's continues to fall apart. While she's stuck in her ways, refusing to accept that her plan won't work, everyone will slowly turn to the Captain instead. Eventually we NEED Mavuika, and so she has to make a choice. Stick with her beloved plan that she's sacrificed so much for, or realize what a true leader needs to do and work with her people properly. This creates flaws and growth for her character in one fell swoop, while leaving less of the quest feeling scattered and unimportant. I'm glad I'm not the only one who wished to see more from the plan confrontation.
Out of all the archons, she is the ONLY one I don't like based on personality or backstory. Which sucks for me since she's visually my favourite character. Everything about her feels just like how saurusness feels about Act V of the Natlan Archon Quest: a dropped ball.
She's ridiculously inoffensive; she feels like she was carefully designed and manufactured to be sold as a product and a product alone. To appeal to everyone without having anything unique about her. Aside from her involvement in the Archon Quest and the backstory she was given, I can't find one thing about her that stands out.
Ooh I think you hit on something there, for their ups and downs and power fluctuations the other archons do feel more like people than the "human archon" mauvika... How stoic she is, how she never struggles, how she "looks cool" while fighting essentially, will not lose to anyone etc. It sounds like selling an action figure more than writing a compelling story about a character, even most superheroes struggle and fail and have moments of defeat and weakness, no matter how they come back or win in the end, they still HAVE failures that affect them in some way. Mauvika felt like the blandest type of shounen writing to me and I wasn't here for it. I hadn't dug hard into her lore or stories but the idea that there's still relatively little there is so disappointing.
what she can do as a character honestly for me, more than makes up for her bland personality and everything negative in between.
All i've been hearing in these echochambers literally just revolves around her personality and story, completely neglecting how powerful she is as a character and her positive traits that were also completely overlooked. While i do agree with some of them, i do think the hatred is way too forced sometimes to the point where the slander from some people makes it seem like she's a good-for-nothing character. Which is totally unfair for players who don't care much about her story and just wants to enjoy her as a character.
@@SinclairXOXO well ppl are still too biased with the natlan hate trend going on. I mean yes they have a reason to criticize natlan but i feel like it is an overreaction
@@SinclairXOXOso far I haven't seen anyone strongly hate her, most people just find her boring, or are disappointed.
And her being powerful and positive wasn't overlooked - rather, it's part of the problem.
She's so strong and perfect that it's hard to hate her, but it's also hard to really like her.
@@SinclairXOXO strong hate is what the fandom used to direct towards raiden
Mavuika however just fell flat for a lot of ppl
Honestly, Mavuika has taken the place of Raiden Shogun as my least favourite Archon so far just because of how poorly they handled her characterization. Raiden was a tyrant and harmed many people in her desire for Eternity, but she had multiple layers that showed the grieving and awkward woman beneath the stoic exterior. Her Tea Pot lines really helped me grow a soft spot for her.
Mavuika is just too... flat a character. She doesn't seem to show the range of humanity, despite being a human-based Archon. Like you said, even when confronted by her dead sister, whom she loved dearly, she hardly shows an ounce of despair or grief at being reunited and than quickly separating from her again. In their effort to make her the 'ideal' Archon, the writers gave us a person we couldn't really connect to because she lacks any true flaws that we can sympathize with. But like you said, with her still carrying the Gnosis we might still get to see more of her story being told. I'm not sure if it will be enough, though.
I related to Raiden personally. It was a lot of personal factors, but the grief and almost bumbling around when not doing anything was DEEPLY humanizing for her to me and made her so believable. I couldn't imagine meeting anyone actually like Mavuika.
Raiden was a NEET with martial expertise and low EQ. She also didn't have good company to guide her especially regarding the nature of human beings.
If Makoto lived, things would have been whole lotta different.
Like you said in your previous video, Natlan Archon quest is filled with missed opportunities. Mavuika characterisation is one and there's so many little things that adds up leaving a kinda "meh" result at the end.
They did managed to kinda redeemed the Inazuma arc with Raiden second quest. Let's hope for the best (thou I tend not to with this game any more since it allows me to not being truly disappointed =P).
Copium
Pyro gnosis is still there
For Raiden, she was still extremely horribly-written and rushed to hell. The Inazuma Archon Quest and her First Story Quest were pure TRASH in writing and pacing. Her Second Story Quest was better and a step in the right direction where she TRIES to ATONE for her foolish actions and become a better person and leader for her people m, but it was only DECENT at BEST. There are STILL GLARING ISSUES plaguing her to this very day.
She still NEEDS an ACTUAL redemption arc, not that sad and PATHETIC EXCUSE of an redemption "arc" that was her Second Story Quest (and her First Story Quest was FAR WORSE in writing, pacing, and tone, where it was just pure GARBAGE).
@@rickynguyen5108 honestly, as writer she still has that potential to be fixed as a character in her third quest.
make her visits different islands and surprised to see how different everything and the result of her abandonment toward Inazuma. make her realise she's running away instead of trying to move on. that will make her personality as a warrior who doesn't know how to rule a nation and decide to be shut in because she's overwhelmed by archon job who used to be hold by makoto.
@mitacestalia7532
True. The huge problem is IF she even gets a Third Story Quest to her with exploring what you stated here to begin with, and considering what's going on right now (and how greedy and lazy the Genshin devs and higher-ups at Mihoyo are), I strongly DOUBT she'll even get that fix.
Also, considering Mihoyo and the Genshin devs' tendencies to massively screw up their storytelling, her third Story Quest, if she even gets one, will be garbage in execution.
They haven't redeem Raiden yet. People want for a moment of compassion and actual consequences of Raiden's action as a tyrant instead of silly forced date + fighting the puppet for another 500 years just to show how cool and strong she is. I think no one cares how strong she is at that point except the players for marketing goal. Raiden would've been way better if she is hated by large portion of her people after the AQ then we get to see how she deal with it. Some thing that actually showed character development as a ruler.
Raiden just seemed better NOW simply because we got someone worse. Can't let Inazuma slide that easily.
Imagine wielding such a legendary weapon only to attack with a fucking motorcycle
And why did it have to be a motorccycle anyways? Couldn't they have made some magical looking doodat that fits more into the whole aesthetic of the game? (Guess it fits her leather-clad look but thats about it)
We do have machines and automatons in fontaine, but that was their schtick. Nathlan is somewhere trapped between dinosaurs and Motorcycles and all over the place and it's honestly just wierding me out. I haven't played the story yet, as i've just arrived in Fontaine storywhise. (Sumeru was a banger!)
@@Aurirang Some people were asking for a flaming horse and I was hoping for her to summon a dragon or something. Instead we get the bike
@ The Rollerblades on Xilonen was already pushing it in my opinion. (Even if exploring like this is fun)
They could have made her ride a Liepard or another bigger cat, considering she's supposed to be an Ozelot?
That would work with the whole 'casually rolling up a mountain' thing, as cats are very good climbers.
Heck, they could have went full tribal with their animals for Nathlan and it would have been absolutely awesome! Mavuika could have had a Phoenix, a dragon, some flaming Pegasus or whatever instead of a lame motorcycle.
That said, i can't even believe that i'd ever call a motorcycle 'lame'...
I find it hard to believe that the people who wrote the deeply moving stories and characters of Sumeru and Fontaine could be the same people who wrote the mostly shallow Natlan stories and characters. As if Hoyo pulled the good writers from this project to work on other projects. (And the same re: character designers.) I'm not saying that's what actually happened, but that's what it feels like to me.
100%. It's like an entire different team did Natlan. Whoever they are, I hope they get reassigned back to ZZZ, and let the Fontaine writers and designers back before Snezhnaya is ruined
Apparently the sumeru Fontaine team was assigned to Snezhnaya, we do not realize how the cryo region story is to simply put out : Behemoth, their was no way they could do natlan then snezhnaya in such a short time
She's basically the MCU Captain Marvel of Genshin:
1. Powerful
2. Barely has any human flaws
3. Shallow character development
4. Aided by the "Power of Friendship"
Decent but nowhere near as interesting as Nahida or Furina.
She's basically a cookie cut girlboss mary sue but since she's a pretty anime girl, people are fine with it
She feels like 12 year olds first ocs; will never make mistakes, tragic backstory is only for a decor, not internally woven, loved by everyone and their action isnt challenged to the point of changing/progressing said character
Tldr; very shallow
@@raviolibirb8009 nah, mary sues channels narcissim and have to be the focus of the limelight at the expense of all the other characters. If she was a Mary Sue Traveller would not have been such a hero in Natlan. She's just op and boring.
She is not perfect, but she has no flaws and no quirks. I can see somewhat that being flawless was the intention but there's a lack of dynamism in the writing that kinda makes it all fall apart anyway. I understand that it's part of the meme too but the fact that they try and force it down your throat a bit, during her quest is a bit weird kinda, it exposes a flaw with Natlan somewhat and it's kinda how, it feels a bit confused/wonky, in terms of vision and direction. I think it's just how they wanted to go about making the direction they chose as digestible as possible.
@@raviolibirb8009 Yes I am fine it with because she's hot😅. But criticism are valid.
for a human archon she's the least human of them all :/
@@x1225mariko least human award still goes to Ei but its close
@@icebear4325 nah, ei still has multiple, somewhat more distinct traits (or flaws). sucks at cooking, struggles to give up power, clueless about modern day stuff, etc.
mauvika picked up painting and supposedly mastered it in ~1wk.
Her most human Moment, to me, Is when She almost cries After Xbalanque compliments her
Being a human Archon is precisely why she can’t act like a human. Gods have people’s fate no matter how they act, she had to strip herself from her humanity to give people hope that she can defeat the Abyss - do something human could not.
@@Propolis00 i suppose we all cope differently with how bad her character is
I have suspicion they nerf the story to make her perfect, because it start to get weird at 5.2, like they want a brief patch to flesh out characters (like archon quest but a calm before storm moment) but even that so short!! This make me angry because it ties to how they waste Capitano's potential
1) bro WITNESSING the fall of khaenriah, we can GET INFO about it more, we can have a hangout/prep time with him, asking about the event 500 years ago & mavuika can join in & relate to him, as both are warrior that fought the unknown danger (this will make incels angry tho)
.
2) Capitano is the only one challenging mavuika's plan, they have this good banter of a leader & co leader do in a lot of story, they are foil for each other, literal fire & ice for crying out loud, every moment with him can be utilized for this
.
3) Capitano stole the story's emotional core for me, as he also a human (albeit with modified body), he fought the abyss & he cares about his people so much he want their soul to rest in peace, HE CHALLENGED A SHADE FOR THAT. I FEEL MAVUIKA IS NOT CONFLICTED ENOUGH TO SEE AN OUTLANDER DO THAT FOR HER COUNTRY & HERSELF, Yelan in interlude archon quest emote & show her fear when Xiao teleport them & about to self sacrifice himself, showing that she does not want to lose a team member from self sacrificing again, it's tied to her background of her carrying survivor guilt. Capitano just kinda mentioned briefly when- GIRL, thanks to his condition & sacrifice you are still standing, really pure luck, doesn't that mean a moment of reflection for you? Honorable or great warrior is not enough, you keep your life because fortunately there's another one want to take your place
I hate the Genshin kit trend where characters can have some of the cleanest looking normal attacks, only for their gameplay to not use them whatsoever. I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels the same way about Mavuika’s playstyle, especially after seeing how awesome she was in the fight against Capitano.
To me, my feelings of Mavuika can be summed up by putting her character artwork alongside the other Archons. The other Archons are all characters. Mavuika is a function tied to her having a motorbike.
Yeah bro all that crazy moves in fight with capitano just to end up using a bike to fight
THIS.When you pull Mavuika you are pulling her BIKE,not her.How much of ideally challenged of genshin team to think that yeah Mavuika loves bikes,we should glue her ass in the bike for 3/4 of main attack animation,when in the story animation she look like raw god of war that slice,punch and kick enemy and capable of flying like superman?why not using badass movement like that?i mean they can copy dehya burst moveset,make it a switch state and controlable,giving it more badass sfx,vfx and bigger number dmg and she will be more like literal god of fcking war not god of bike
This is why I moved from Genshin. The characters don't feel like characters. In all honesty, how much of the characters we are using fully? I would say not much. Most of them are skill bots or ultimate bots. 9 out of 10 characters you rarely use their normal attack.
you're supposed to look at the enemies during combat, not at your own character
@@Barni2212 first time i see someone complained that there are too few on-fielders
It feels like hoyo wants to compete the tech and gameplay of wuthering waves when in fact genshin has its own aspect that players love. Hoyo really failed to see this
Or the fact the diverse cast of characters is what attracted people to the game which 5.x completely lack
Thisssss! You can tell Natlan was their experiment to find a way to freshen up the game due to the competition. I’ve been reading comments from the CN side and even they find natlan to be extremely lacking.
They clearly tried with switching animations and mulani kinnich gameplay
@@Josh-qt5zi yeah.. hoyo seems to think that making less cool male characters is going to make game more popular.. nope.. genshin became super popular even in west bcause it wasnt the usual waifu-only gacha game
@@sephoraortega7586 genshin's biggest competitiors are HSR and the korean dating sim, i doubt they're worried about wuwa
Y'all its actually a joke!! There will be a quest in the upcoming patches which reveals a plot twist that Mavuika is a puppet like the Raiden Shogun and the reason she was perfect is because she's been programmed to be a war machine and we'll get to know what happened to the actual Archon in all this time. (sorry for the copium, i just can't believe the quality of writing in the AQ could drop sm after how promising Sumeru and Fontaine werE T_T )
I wish I liked the Natlan characters more, Mavuika included. So far I’ve only pulled for Kinich (Spiderman grapple go brrrr) but even then I mostly pulled because I liked his gameplay not because I fell absolutely in love with him the way I did with Lyney. Here’s hoping the next region will be better
Same here. Love Kinich’s gameplay during battle.
Pulled some characters out of boredom (u-u). Interesting gameplays so it's primo worth. I am not happy with Mavuika and Citlali as characters, but boy they help my account atleast..... I need to get Xilonen for Wrio team next.
I'm sure Sneznaya will be great. Natlan is pretty much a filler
What is really frustrating about Kinich is that his backstory is really good. But in game, that backstory is never ever mentioned, and Kinich barely has any screen time in the quests. What a shame
Kinich was barely present in the AQ, it was all about Kachina and Mualani, and it's hard to really like someone who appears on screen for such a short time 😥
I'm pretty sure even Chasca's sister (a mere NPC) had more screen time than him
So he's the only male 5-star we got in 2024, and they basically pushed him out of the AQ to glorifiy the female characters, which is so disappointing. He has a good backstory, they could have used that, but instead they just ignored him completely. He doesn't even appear a lot in his own story quest...
I honestly feel as if they had the whole quest unplanned except the self sacrifice of capitano and they just tried to make everything lead up to that moment, the fact that they made it poorly is another thing entirely
I really get annoyed when people say natlan felt like typical shounen because even shounen mangas have more depth. Even the one like black clover and demon slayer if you chose to get invested do not break your suspension of disbelief the way natlan does.
The world building had holes in Natlan. Not just the tech, the effects of war was not present in the open world. Very inconsistent and Mavuika’s character building was done haphazardly through self exposition and game external media (animation). Also, it did not build on the information we had about Natlan pre version 5. You can say they only had an idea at the start of development but the standard for other nations wasn’t there. Being OP is a marketing tactic to compensate with the characterization and story imho. I hope they go back to basics otherwise it’ll be another Game of Thrones.
can you explain the game of thrones part i dont know anything about it
@@normalbirid79the last two seasons were such a throw away, fans thought they were being punked and it was just a joke. It was so bad.
@@normalbirid79it’s basically biggest miss in TV history. It started off as an amazing story due to its characters and lore of the world and by the last two seasons all characters were butchered by stupidly bad writing
@@normalbirid79last 2 seasons were rushed to hell and back because the producers wanted to work on a bigger project. Disney star wars
while I agree with you but it really rubs me the wrong way how people have such a wrong perception of natlan's technology. Natlan as a nation isnt as technologically or academically advanced as sumeru or fontaine but natlan is where multiple dragon civilisations existed and they had tech for even space travel. Moreover only xilonen has made only a handful of things from the things they excavated , that too runs using phlogiston only.
They even almost answered the question at 6:38 in Chasca’s quest. Clearly they thought about how having this special tech could assist regular humans/humans who couldn’t fly with saurians specifically, but then it was just kind of… dropped after that.
because it's animal cruelty dumbass
they have to be technologically stunted cuz...reasons ya know cant be powercreeping on Fontaine...Amirite?
because ughm, bird only let you fly on them when you are skilled??? and uhhh not like they sticked to an exhausting process of extracting fuel from live specimens when there was the more complex but still implied to be viable option of not using them, and even then doing it via birds but not in exhausting manner must be an option, yeah lets suppress attempt to make something quite useful widespread because uhhh reasons and its bad to hurt animals and stuff
@@tachikomagaming2451 Meanwhile all other nations specially monstadt without horses lol at least sumeru has their charge animals and fontaine ships because mostly water, but natlan unless you are the mc or have a vision seems there is only hot air balloon which probably arent many of them
@@asoretlol really tho- Grand master Varka must have took all the f*cking horses- cause how hard is it to have a few horse models?!?! x3
I hate that the writers have some very obvious pet characters that never get called out in the story. Furina got nasty glares after the Poisson disaster, but characters like Arlecchino or Mavuika just get nothing but praise. I wouldn't dislike these characters so much if at least the narrative acknowledged whenthey did something wrong.
Right remember during the sumeru saga how nahida was constantly insulted and belittled by the sages because they thought so little of her and she herself constantly self ridiculed cause she thought she couldn't even save her people, that subtle nuances made me like her more. Mavuika is a strong person and that's literally it
Turning Arlecchino into "mOrAlLy GrAy" when she's clearly been described as evil by Childe was probably the 2nd worst writing decision. Only to be beaten by this disastrous region
@@heisansberg2347 I am convinced arleccino was supposed to be like her mother but they retconned that
HUGE AGREED
The worst part is that, even if there are bad rumours and nasty glares, it’s not shown - it’s talked about in their soulless texts of dialogues of NPCs (like those two fatui in front of Mond waypoint after any AQ or just any fatuus in general in cities upon asking about things transpired in the nation they’re stationed in). Like. At least do this during major quests!!! It’s not like we aren’t forced to walk incredibly slowly while listening to characters and p*mon yap, put on some visuals and show crowds whispering to each other with their text bubbles!!!
Bot for hoyo thats really too much to ask for 😔
@heisansberg2347 I'm pretty sure it's because of the Chinese censorship. I don't think ur allowed to have a playable character that's evil (correct me if I'm wrong). It's probably why I didn't like her character, even tho she was my most anticipated when the fatui trailer came out. It bothers me how she's liked by the traveller and other fontaine characters. She runs an orphanage that basically churns out soldiers for a highly radical and violent military group 😭 HOW R WE JUST SKIPPING OVER THIS!
It's so ironic that Mavuika feels less human than any archons we know.
I feel like Hoyo spent too much time designing her motorbike and forgot to write the character.
In neuvilettes story quest, melusienes were outcast of society but in the flashbacks, the tech remains the same as is does in game. What im trying to suggest is Fontaine has used the same tech for around 500 years, and now is just introducing it to other regions, so why does xilonen and the phlogistion create more futuristic tech than Fontaine??? Yea it’s “dragon tech” but the dragons we know of in game, dvalin, azdaha, apep , morax , neuvilette , aren’t creating crazy futuristic tech. Khan’riea uses technology similar to the dragon stuff, a bit clunky robots with letters engraved in them to give the power of logos. In lore, knan’ria was VERY advanced but why does natlan in lore an underdeveloped technological nation over power it?
Yes the fatui have guns and stuff, but the house of the hearth comes from Fontaine and could of easily used the tech to make the fatui guns, also imo, the fatui use elemental materials found in the world, like the electro hammer guy could just be using electro crystals on a hammer.
This is a long rant, but i needed to get it out, i dont read much into the lore, but natlan is just so much different then what info we had on it…..
3:19, you can see how the character turn like a door
Billion dollars budget well spent, imagine someone is paid a large sum to half ass it 😂
You're not alone on hating her. From what I heard, Natlan hasn't been doing good in CN and JP as well, which has to be due to the oversaturation of female characters and the lack of male characters.
You'd think that in a nation of "war", you'd get more male characters or a decnt 1:3 male:female ratio but apparebtly, all the men are dead or in the kitchen.
Notice how the entire story was written in such a away that it killed off all the major male characters so they find an excuse to not make'em playable, while the only 3 Natlanese men we've got so far, one's just a kid and the other 2 a 4 star, with one of them being a doctor who just seems to have an ok design. Meanwhile, Capitano's "dead" (I know he'll be back but still), Xbalanque being ressurected is unknown and Xiuhcoatl (Pyro Sovereign) being reborn into a human form is just a distant memory, all guys who could've made tons of money for Mihoyo but instead, they were all used to glaze Mavuika to infinity as if she wasn't already perfect.
Natlan was definitely rewritten in the last minute by Da Wei to glaze tf outta his favorite waifu Himeko expy (Mavuika) on the expense of all the strong male characters, and now the reception's been so bad that they had to back-peddle and release Capitano teasers way before his time of release to damage control.
Meanwhile, a fan-made music video of Och-Kan's praises of Xbalanque was turned into a song in CN and got more views than Mavuika's trailer, along with the Cap beating her by 20 ranks in JP character popularity polls last yr, despite losing to her in his debut match
People all around the world are geting a waifu fatigue, and you know it's bad when one of your 2 most reliable home markets don't wanna pull for'em
We really lost Capitano, Xbalanque and Xiuhcoatl to some girl who farts out an elemental burst (She points her butt towards the screen while bursting and she's anemo. Anemo being air. Do the math). Sure I don't mind her (Yeah I'm freaky) but I didn't wanted to lose 3 GOATed men in exchange of getting her
Sorry for the long rant, but I think Natlan will keep going down and losing sales if they don't pick their game up and bring up some hype male units.
To be fair, I do like Ororon. I don't think his design is anything crazy but he's nice. He's pretty sheltered and naive, but it's in a funny and endearing way, as opposed to a blithering manchild way, you know?
Definitely think there should've be more important playable male characters for Natlan though. Genshin being a husbando AND waifu game is one of the main draws lmao
Don’t even know what male characters there are to look forward to, besides Ifa and that Mondstadt boy. No more male archons, Dottore is iffy, where is The Captain. Hope they actually do something with Varka.
I got a good laugh fron the last paragraph, lol thanks dude
But yea, hoyo should've realized they're not handling a niche waifu-only game (hi3) bc genshin's already too mainstream. Their most popular characters have males and that proves male can sold well.
Heck, they should've get a wake up call seeing LADS scoring higher revenue for these past months
“Yeah I’m freaky”- the admission is crazy 🤣🤣
I agree- female players want more male characters but I’m sure male players want more male characters too, even though I don’t fully trust them with the task yet. Wrio imo was peak at what they could achieve with male characters. And Capitano’s entire design and backstory is far too badass for them to keep him in limbo.
I'm fine with female characters, has been more female then male forever
You know it's not because natlan has futuristic tech, for me the actual problem is that it doesn't blend in with the rest of the world and its world building
Yes. Usually the futuristic tech is from ancient civilizations or is limited (like in Fontaine). In Natlan Xialonen builds modern tech like it's nothing.
@@DiaryofNatalieRose Hello there, speed reader! Did you know that Natlan used to be inhabited by an ancient civilization of dragons that wielded advanced tech? Did you also know Xilonen studied the ancient tech they left behind and is especially adept at her blacksmith job because she is well-versed in said tech?
@@EnderBroadcast bro I literally said ancient civilization in my comment. If anyone is speed reading it's you 😂
Agree with that. It's aesthetic issue for me, not gonna lie. Did they really have to go for "modern" bike instead of old model ones. That'd blend in better. Or maybe futuristic ones with wheels that aren't connected to the main body. That fits with the rest of the old civilization tech we've seen so far. But instead we get "modern", and that ruins it for me
@@EnderBroadcast and these dragons "advanced tech".... were motor-bikes? why would a dragon ride a motorcycle? in teyvat? in NATLAN? like there are no highways anywhere and the terrain is never flat. Like what?
I am far more interested in Ororon, who does basically nothing except run around and get chased by Citlali, than I ever was in Mavuika's story
Ororon has more good moments away from Citlali than with her tho
same, i love their dynamic :3 and Ororon in general
My biggest fear is Skirk ending up like this
Or Tsarista
Nah, if anything, the little we've seen of Skirk already shows her with MORE personality ,lol.
The way she just yeeted Childe to the void was peak comedy xD xD
I'm already mad that they made her look like a generic Honkai character (TT)
@ET-tu3gp thats okay, I personaly love her desing and I bought her cosplay
don't manifest this into existence 😭🙏
oh boy. a 21 minute long hate watch that confirms my negative bias? DONT MIND IF I DO
Is it just a bias tho? Or perhaps you can just simply recognize some writing mistakes that have been made.
LMAO fr its so hard to find videos like this
LMAO SO REAL 😭🙏
Unrelated but I accidentally read minutes as hours somehow, and I bet for sure 21 hours of Natlan hate would do numbers on the three of you
@@itsmeliska1186it’s def bias if you all see negative on a character lol
I felt empty when the whole squad got saved by Mauvika after getting struck inside the night kingdom during 5.1. Like there was no risk at all if you know that Mauvika will save you no matter what bruh...
What i loved about Fontaine before Natlan is that characters like Melus and Silver were just side characters we thought of as comedic relievers but when the news about them dying hit us, oh I still get the chills how sad I got and thinking of Navia having no one in the world to support her. Man now I'm sad😭.
In Natlan we saw how soo many people died due to our choices but we got no time to mourn about them, even now we get to know how we killed and could've saved so many if took the right choices which was neverrrr told or even made to feel in game. The only time I felt remotely emotional is when Chyuchu died and even that was foreshadowed so many fucking times it felt fake.
Regarding your questions about the lore: no, she was not conscious during these 500 years, and as such did not have all this time to prepare herself. This is shown by a few things in the world, including her not remembering her sister's deeds, or locals finding strange that Mavuika looked just like the statue from the Archon of 500 years ago, among others. As such, she is designed as having become perfect at nearly everything in the span of the maybe 30 years she had to actually live, which is indeed quite questionable. I've read almost all the lore available since 5.0 and have found no explanation given for this, either.
EDIT: to clarify, the knowledge that the Sacred Flames grants to the Archon is described as "knowledge and memory of this land," by Mavuika, which, given the context, described information (mostly about the inital rules of Natlan and how the Pilgrimage works) rather than practical skills.
On another topic, I'd like to thank you for being one of the few who do speak out on the matter! The Mavuika hype train has had a tendency to drown out the valid criticism on version 5 lately, and it's refreshing to see that some still expect a high standard from the game. Really appreciate your video essays for their honesty and accuracy.
She wasn't fully conscious but it definitely wasn't a blip and she's in the future. Also the sacred flame grants the knowledge and experience of the Land and Previous Pyro Archons to the current one
I’m not sure if this was in the game, though there probably was some detail about it, but on the wiki the sacred flame serves as a data bank of sorts?, which allows new pyro archons to obtain a vast amount of knowledge memories from previous archons and the land itself.
While she was competent, I don’t think she was perfect, which unfortunately doesn’t really come across in game.
@eden8498 I remember that as well, and would have liked to see Hoyo explore just how badly that could mess up your head.
Pretty much all of her emotional dissonance could be explained in a satisfying way by tying it back to, "congratulations, you now have a bunch of emotional connections to a enough dead people to fill a stadium, have fun trying to relate to regular people!"
@@MorgenPeschkeyea, this is exactly what I was hoping too and I'm really disappointed they didn't go there because it would actually make perfect sense and be a little, well, humanizing. Something that could engender empathy in the way Citlali's purposeful aloofness is explored in her story quest.
@@MorgenPeschke This would've been so SO good, and it would've made her a much more compelling character to me imo. They should've shown a bit more emotional turmoil, more mental dissonance. She's supposed to be "The human Archon", and yet, she feels like the least human of them all...
welcome to natlan (disneyland) nation of war and dragons based on ancient meso america theme, we have :
-Dude who has pixel pet, loli who ride a beyblade, cowboy elf who floats with giant gun, girl who use roller skate and use DJ board
-Archon that wear latex and ride motorcycle somehow and actually a mary sue
-dragons? more like basic pokemons
-wartorn nation and tribes suffering? more like sunshine and rainbow and everyone is partying 24/7
-power of friendship
@@quanlinglingdingle6122 We also have 20 year old granny. She best girl tho.
@@zukodude487987 erm actually.. she's 100+ years old 🤓👆
@@angelsvsp.. she just acts like a tween in all her animations, but trust, she was made to look like a grown adult 🎀
One question, do you play Wuwa?
i genuinely keep forgetting that mavuika is ultimately just a human. with furina, you could never forget she’s human-her humanity is a core part of her character and her role in the plot of fontaine, take that away and her story would fall apart.
mavuika, on the other hand, feels entirely different. if the next patch suddenly revealed that she’s not just a human but some heir of a dragon, no one would bat an eye. there’s nothing inherently human about her, and her being human adds nothing to the story. she wasn’t torn by human fears or desires, her human body never lacked strength, and her human mind showed no flaws in reasoning - there’s simply nothing that ties her to being human in a meaningful way.
How in gods name did we go from Furina to Mavuika ??? Like how is that even possible
I’m not even sure what you’re trying to ask tbh…
I love Furina but you're comparing 2 fundamentally different characters regardless of them both being Archons.
@@MrSquishy0 It has nothing to do with Furina being an archon , it's just the character writing quality that has taken a complete shift not just the archon who is the main focus but the entire cast , Natlan as whole is major downgrade in character writing aspects
Because comparing a Lion to a Kitten is peak story direction
@@Vergilcore they're obliviously talking about the character stories not the strength
Your critiques are all totally valid. I had a LOT of problems with Citlali too. We're told she's experienced, but shown immaturity, as though 25 year old writers and VAs struggled to imagine a long life and any wisdom it might bring.
Whoever wrote citlali should take notes from Frieren on how to write a long living character
the problem is that they know how to write wise characters, see zhongli, kazuha, ayato even hutao, they just chose not to do so, and I have no idea why, if they wanted to go that way there has nothing to stop them from making citlali young and inexperienced while also having a lot of talent
To the same end, a lot of wisdom comes from interaction, the people that we consider wise have spoken to lots of people on innumerable occasions; citlali is very clearly a hermit who cuts everyone off to protect herself from grief with the traveler being the first since her friend from so long ago that it took an entire questline to find out one her life's greatest achievements because no one could verify it. This would lead to certain immaturities when interacting with people a lot more closely than you've been used to for at least about a normal human life or 2. That said. she does seem calm when the stakes are high and the cards are down but I do agree that it would feel mice is she actually had some words of wisdom to impart in those moments, unless she did and I just missed them
While valid, it’s not Venti, Furina, Miko, or what we’ve seen from Alice radiates maturity either. They really just do and act as they please and then act accordingly when it’s time to do their job before continuing their hobbies.
@@ApatheticNomad That's an excellent point. She's supposed to be socially stunted. This could have been conveyed in English with better casting. I love Skyler Davenport as March 7th, but they sound lost as Citlali.
Haven’t watched the video yet but I already wanted to write a comment.
Mavuika feels so… perfect for a human. TOO perfect, with „no“ flaws or anything.. Like others are saying, she feels like a piece of cardboard. She doesn’t feel human at all.
Made me think who among the “boring” characters we have are even more interesting than Mavuika, an archon:
Ayato? Albedo? Alhaitham? Cyno? All massively competent characters but there’s mystique, humor and personality. Even Raiden has her quirks.
I’m happy for those who like Mavuika. At least they’re not disappointed. 😅
Im sorry but as an albedo simp, seeing albedo categorized as boring is kinda funny to me
No offense, i get his character isnt for everyone. But to me he's genshin's no.1 most interesting character personality and lore-wise
(Dont forget he eats spider and has dysfunctional family across the teyvat map lol)
@@bubblesparksoh same! He literally has a whopper flower twin! 😂 others just focus on his kit but story-wise, one of the goats!
Really even a plank board has more personality than Mavuika
@@ArthurShotgun😂😂😂
I mean, they've been around longer than she has tho? Her story isn't over yet
And people thought i was wrong for thinking the quests were kinda boring. I held off hoping the final chapter was where all the interesting twists and turns come in and nothing. Mauvi was flawless, almost no struggle or depth. Even the animated stories made no meaningful contribution to her character, you could skip it and miss nothing vital in the story or character development. She didnt even seem all that sad when her people died.
Natlans story was just, we are at war with the abyss and we push them back in a final showdown with no struggles, the end.
Did we play the same missions? Natlan was losing and had been losing the entire time. It took all of Natlan, The Fatui, led by the #1 Harbinger and the main character to win.
@oojimmy52 Yes Natlan was losing, that is how any story goes, things are bad and the new hero on the block comes in to save the day, mr.to-my-knee oh sorry i meant Tumaini.
i was waiting for the twists as well, there were so so so many interesting things mentioned at the start of the quest that could have been developed into one final huge plot twist.
I actually liked the first acts of the AQ in Natlan, but I was disappointed by Act 5. We all knew what would happen, before playing the quest. We all knew Mavuika was never - at any moment - in danger because Capitano would die in her place. No surprise, no suspence. She doesn't even struggle. I kept hoping for some crazy plot twist that would blow my mind, like it happened in Fontaine, but it never happened. The quest gave us exactly what we knew would happen. No more, no less. It was like watching a movie I had seen before. It was good, but no surprise. And somehow I expected more than just a mere "good" from the finale of an archon quest..
The entire storyline of Natlan made Capitano a more beloved character than Mavuika herself
Not only does he look cooler, but he has a better story arc than her
Something I want to add in terms of Mavuika’s design is that every single (literally each and every) Natlan character has tattoos on their bodies, feathered accessories, patterns, fun and interesting colors, charms, and if they are female, at least one braid in their hair. Maybe it was me making expectations out of nowhere, but Mavuika has NONE of those. What a missed oppurtunity. She could still have the flame hair, but the biker outfit feels so so so out of place.
she has them during her burst on her face and chest
@@Sofisasam she's so white you can't even notice them.
I remember doing her trial and being confused when she didn't have the night soul glow other characters did or glowing tattoo like markings. She seems super bland visually when its just her hair going
I kinda wish I enjoyed her - it's been forever since I wished for anyone 😩
i'm runnign out of characters to build haha
Not into Citlali either? She has been one of my favorites introduced characters and you can play them with other pyro dps or Neuvillette
@ Disliked her in the earlier quests - I get what they were going for, but for me someone having trauma doesn't justify them lashing out at others. Definitely a MUCH better-written and more rounded character than the others, but just one I disliked a fair bit.
Her tribal quest was fun though, and definitely did enough to make me empathise with her more. Gonna be pulling on her rerun though, rather than spending primos right now!
I understand you... Goodluck in future character pulls.
Same. :( Haven’t gotten a new 5 star since Kinich, and then another Lyney when I was getting Ororon. Maybe I’ll play Genshin again when Ifa is out.
The type of characters that go simply “I’m so cool, I’m perfect and everything I do is right, my only flaw is my own awesomeness” have always run me off, they feel so unnatural, and give me the 12 year old author on Wattpad self insert vibes (here you see I hate Rey Palpatine and Kiriko from Ow2)
“But ackshually she has flaws…” yeah ofc, and by the power of the mighty Hoyo plot holes they don’t count nor matter.
Also can we talk about how shes supposed to be THE ARCHON OF WAR??? When I look at her, I see nothing that screams war. I was so excited, thinking we could get a badass warrior, thinking we could get a bloodthirsty brute. But nah, we get a motorcycle mary sue. 🤦
great video. I feel exactly the same way about her, it's actually refreshing to see so many of the character problems highlighted in such a concise video. Natlan genshin feels to me like a victory lap, the devs think they can no longer fail and are throwing wild ideas at the wall thinking anything they do will always work. Mavuika suffers from most of Natlans problems but packaged inside a single unit.
I never thought I'd say that, but i was dissaponted when Mavuika didn't die. Like i was expected it'll be more... meaningful? If she's so human, she needs to accept her end, as a hero and etc..but no, we got Capitano's rest(let's say) which is wat interesting than Mavuika. At first, i was curious about her, but now i understand she's too perfect. She's literally good at everything, and her fears like in short stories feel..like s joke, really. I can understand other archons cause they have human side despite of their God powers, what has Mavuika? God powers and.. boring personality. It's respectful that she treats others like friends, but i still have nothing to like her or dislike her
The thing is, capable and kind, nearly OP and perfect archon/character can be interestingg
We literally have gojo satoru the perfect fighter/mentor somewhat that is portrayed to be very powerful. Yet he doesn't feel one dimensional bc the author gave him several traits that humanizes him (being very childish, a bit of a douchebag, and super annoying towards ppl around him)
Mavuika could have been very ambitious with lofty ideas (like Itto) but they might have run out of adorable flaws 😅 everything is taken so they just gave her the messiah complex
Even in Genshin, you have characters like Zhongli and Neuvilette who fit a similar mold. They are immensely powerful, have upstanding character, and yet are way more interesting as characters compared to Mavuika.
@@XylonLionheart neuvi's writing was pretty emotional. I wasn't interested that much in him during the first AQ (understandably so) but neuvi's characterization also succeed due to his dynamic with focalors-melusine and navia.
On top of that he's given the silly traits which we all like, rating teyvat's waters and the story of rain with hydro dragon being sad.
It's all these elements that are missing from mavuika tbh. Dynamic character relationship + silly traits for the cherry on top
And people still hate on him, you can't please everyone
@@MrSquishy0 ppl hate gojo bc he's annoying (as far as what I stumbled upon in that fandom) so that's a testament that his writing is effective
Like furina who was supposed to tick you off due to her incompetence.
the reason i skipped her was mostly the whole having too have natlan characters for her to work properly i understand she doesn't need them but as someone who hasnt pulled for a single natlan character it just not a good feeling.
Seems like the Natlan characters weren't selling too well, if they have to push them this hard... on top of making many Natlan fights unbearable if you don't have one, with those annoying mimic enemies. "You can Barbara auto attack its shield 5000 times, or you can just pull for a Natlan character ;)))" 😐
@@ET-tu3gp Is funny that they were doing something similar in fontaine but wasnt that strong to be annoying, you could use furina and make a lot of old characters viable and stronger like noelle and many healers, same in fontaine with dendro, you arent forced to play them together, old characters get buffed too, but in natlan you just dont (also enemies with pneuma and ousia mechanics are completely doable ignoring that)
@@ET-tu3gp nope, they did pretty bad, mav included, you will be shocked to learn that the Citlali/Mav banner did worse in CN than goddamn Xianyun launch, I won't even bring other archons in this discussion because it looks A LOT worse for her.
@@ET-tu3gp Or the one boss that makes a pillar. Have fun getting up there, because bows don't work for some god forsaken reason. Not everybody has a Venti/Wanderer or one of the Nathlan crew. I was trying to grind for Xilonens materials and couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how to get up these blasted pillars. So, i had my level 40-ish Xilonen rollerblade up and hope she won't bite the dust.
@@Aurirang Same for me, the thing one-shot my characters multiple times before I resigned myself to putting level 50-ish Mavuika on the team to get up there (╥﹏╥)
I think for me the most polarizing thing about her is that despite seeing her fight with her claymore and bare hands, her entire kit and gameplay is based around the bike. The bike not only feels out of place in teyvat, but in her own design
I don't think it was the motorbike, itself, that threw me off. It was the fact that the story does not include nearly anything of the culture of motorbike enthusiasts that I suspected was who they were trying to attract by adding the motorbike in the first place. It would have been better if she built it completely herself or if the bike appeared more often than just a cameo in Act V and her character story.
She would have been perfect if she had Dehya’s animations
Genshin character writting must be very hard and exausting,as writers are forbiden from doing certain things with characters (like giving them love intrest aside from hinting they're traveler fangirl/boy or breaking the status quo,or giving them negative traits)
Another thing is i cant wait til Mavuika concept arts leak,and it turns out they were way more unique and intresting
fuck are you saying? you wanted a conquescador design for Mavuika? that'd be the most racist thing they could ever do. Making an Archon the colonizer??
Have you never seen the toreador/carnival versions of Mavuika? I was a big fan of the toreador design and very bamboozled when she was finally revealed to be a biker chick.
The curse of being a gacha game, I fear. Actually no, I'm sure other gacha games have characters who have romantic relationships with characters outside the player.
I just can't help but notice that this is a trend among Mihoyo's games recently.
@@StummerVogel It was a bit weird, though. HYV are already pretty terrible at representing the cultures Natlan is inspired by correctly (colorism etc etc), but the theme they were going for for Mavuika is literally a Spansih/colonial/conquistador design in a region mostly based on Latino America and Africa...
@@usalisa3656 I agree, it seems Natlan is supposed to be based on those regions without colonization so Spanish influence wouldn't fit what they're going for. Before it was revealed that the pyro archon is originally human, I was actually wondering if the Spanish influences in the concept design would represent how the archons are usurpers of the original rulers of Teyvat, but that didn't end up being the case.
What an injustice for himeko variant... I hope they won't screw up bronya
@@yharnamiyhill787 well we can cope that the himeko variant is still to come. Like these people are like mentor figures, right?
Huge flop after Furina. They did Himeko dirty.
himeko better
dont mind her design but her personality just feels so bland to me and it feels like hoyoverse desperately wants to sell her ( ik they are a company so revenue is important to them but for her they seem to do so much)
All the haters may go to hell. Mavuika is one of the best character of the game. After Furina, she is the most lovable Archon. She is always ready to sacrifice herself for her people. She has the perfect personality for a perfect Archon. She is the ray hope in darkest time. Mavuika ❤
@chrisevans9882 how do you click on a video about why someone doesn't like Mavuika and then expect Mavuika fans?
@@chrisevans9882 This video and comment section is not the place for a comment such as this. Because you're worshipping this character because of your personal tastes and perceptions everyone else is wrong?
@nanqros3I'm starting to think some of these are bots.
@@dovemaidenWhy not there vocalizing there opinion. Just because it's not the concensus here doesn't mean it should be said I think a bit of positivity in a (Let's be honest) overly negative section is good
Honestly what people need is hindsight. People are fresh from the experience and are reaching out for negativity
It happens every year
Her character was way too reliant on "the bit" of her being "Genshin's Himeko" without understanding why people actually liked the character Himeko in the first place all while constantly shoving in the idea of Honkai Impact 3rd's "Final Lesson" is going to happen to her despite it not happening which is weird cuz it's made by the same company...
Also, now that you mention it, it really does irk me that the backstories to the futuristic weapons that the playable Natlan cast use aren't ancient relics that they found and were made by the ancient draconic race localized in Natlan nor inspired from blueprints made by said race, instead they were all just gadgets made by Xilonen without the need of influence cuz she's just that good at blacksmithing... which is the most disappointing wastes of potential to lore I've ever seen
And then there are people who did not play or don't give to sh*ts about Honkai and or HSR and it falls apart even further
I…. I really wanna redesign mavuika… she’s just.. she doesn’t feel like an archon.
Edit: I started redesigning her immediately after I posted this comment lol
I wish hoyo used her design from 500 years ago. She was so pretty and she actually looked like a warrior
@@joslin4384same
+ she also looked like someone who is active from Natlan (similiar style of clothing to NPCs, not this “Natlan’s got talent” show of every playable dressed as if they are from a different game entirely, not even just from a different nation of teyvat, lol)
@@joslin4384 Please, she would get the same complaints Ei gets if she actually had a skirt.
Don't be shy, drop the art when you're done! I would love to see what you got.
please tell us where to find it if you have social media for your art!
For me, mauvika doesnt feel like an archon. I actually forgot she was the god of specifically war.
Each archon has a divine ideal that they worship/obssess over, often to a fault. The opinions than an archon has about their ideals are rather unique compared to the rest of the cast.
Mauvika doesnt obssess about war the same way venti obssesses about freedom. She wants to end a war. And her opinions on war are the same as the natlan characters, traveller and the player. Its immediately understandable why someone would care about stopping a war to help their people, but its not obvious why someone would care about contracts or eternity.
One idea i have for the pyro archon's ideal of war is justification/recompense.
After watching her people suffere, losing her friends and family and being caught up in her 500 year plan mauvika is desperate for success and cat handle defeat.
When she sees someone be wronged she pushes them to take retribution. She finds battles exhausting but she goes over the top in each one cuz its her belief that she's fighting until one day theres peace.
Eventually learns that the abyss cant be fully stopped which she takes terribley whilst denying the reality of the situation.
Her story would revolve around how she feels entitled to recompense after suffering for so long but having to grapple with reality that her hardwork and pain wont be fully rewarded and that she has to find peace even though hard times are never gone for good.
They could also make her flawed in her obsesion to win and save everyone, being reckless that maybe she doesnt care about being healthy and make it out alive, I mean she lost everything she cared about already so wouldnt be that weird she thinking in self sacrifice, could have made a emotional epic scene where friends and mc convince her to not die and do it together learning that doesnt need to do it all by herself, or make her go all in about the sacrifice and mimic some honkai himeko you know what scene, people would have loved it
she should be called god of peace then
Natlan generally feels like my least favourite nation, even when compared to monstadt. Its a shame, really.
A goddamn shame. Land of war my ass.
it innovated in exploration but regressed in every other category
The story and characters were bland, but the exploration and the region is amazing. Ochkanatlan in particular.
To me natlan Is still the third best nation after sumeru and fontaine
@@DAVFEARONfr the nation just happens to be in war
@@DAVFEARON fr 🤣🤣🤣
Also: Mavuika saved her parents marriage...I'm not even kidding. Read her character stories. She also was so "wise" that her dad literally gave up on teaching Hine, her sister, and just told her to go to Mavuika since she was wayyyyyyyy smarter than Daddy. Not even joking dude. This character is just...yeah. Her story quest is a glaze fest as well with Xbalanque meat riding her as well. Like it's actually so much undeserved garbage. Her "flaw" is that she "sacrifices too much" which is Mary Sue trait 101.
The most underwhelming Archon for me. I expected more, I wanted more, and I got so much less. She feels weak as a character overcompensating in the kit power for lack of depth. There were so many things that I wanted from the pyro archon and I feel like they underwhelmed and missed the mark. Yeah I can see where people would find her visually attractive but she lacks depth and I don't know if that was planned or if it happened by accident. Did I pull for her? Yes I did, but only because I had the wishes, was almost at guarantee hard pity and she reminds me of Fenghuang of Vicissitude Fu Hua from HI3 even though she's not an alternate to her either. Mavuika just doesn't hit the right touches for me, and I think you touched a lot of why. She really was very Mary Sue - she lacks depth and is the most underwhelming archon of the lot. That makes me sad - the archons have always been something more, something larger and yet here she without any flaws and unable to seemingly do any wrong. There is no failing when Mavuika is involved. Moment of truth? I didn't think she was going to perish in the archon quest - I called that someone would take her place because they never gave her any consequences throughout the story. Everything poured off her like water off a ducks back. I had no need to worry for her because everything seemed to work out effortlessly. She didn't do much of anything just waited for her heroes to wake up while mastering every and any skill. Mind you part of that "I had no fears for her" came from their inability to build any tension by 1) not giving her a flaw and 2) not giving any high stakes pressure moments as they went through. She was the embodiment of the arc - flat with moments of actions and emotion, but mostly just walking and sitting around and doing nothing and not being able to emotionally invest because there seems to be no consequences for the perfect archon ever for anything. "She made her sacrifice and now all is forgiven and she is all powerful" - that's not how good tales are written but you do you HoYo.
Actually same. Ever since i found out that the pyro archon was going to be the god of war, i had so many cool ideas for who they could be. They missed the mark on everything
For a lot of people genshin is an adventerous, beautiful lore heavy game with an interesting story that is pretty inclusive towards all kinds of players due the variety of things that you can do which i believed also resulted in it having more popularity than any other game in its genre (i was always pushed off by other gachas for how non inclusive and low quality they felt - by non inclusive i meant oversaturated and disoriented UI, the hardcore gameplay / niche communities , gooner culture etc but these days it feels like genshin is becoming more and more like them, the entirety of natlan archon quest felt like a sales advertisement for the characters it had no substance whatsoever, things that were important were rushed to finish off quickly and the things that had no importance where sooo dragged it just made me feel there was actually no story to be told here, just cooking stew to advertise these characters and get the region over with. there was no important lore apart from the sky break thingy which was just a 1 second moment which wasnt mentioned ever again.
Genshin simply needs to create more compelling characters such as Neuvillette.
It's just a shame that the most human archon has the least human flaws